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THOMAS J..DODD, D. D. 


MIRACLES: 
Were They, or Were 
They Not, Performed 
by Jesus? @y 


A QUESTION of FACT, NOT 
oF SCIENCE or THEOLOGY 


«The question as to what Jesus actually 
said and did is capable of solution by no 
other methods than those ordinarily 
practiced by the historian and literary 
critic.’—Prof. Huxley. — 


By THOMAS J. DODD, D.D. 
Cy 
NSS 


CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS 
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 


COPYRIGHT, 1899, 
BY THE WESTERN 
METHODIST BOOK 
CONCERN # #@ @ 


Preface 


HILE we shall endeavor to make our 
argument sufficiently concise, we shall 

yet make it as comprehensive as the limits we 
have allowed the subject can permit. We 
shall, therefore, along with the other miracles 
of Jesus, include the great, final miracle of his 
resurrection from the dead. But neither as to 
this, nor any of the other miracles, shall we 
attempt a distinct specific argument. We as- 
sert the general proposition that miracles were 
wrought by Jesus, and we hope to show that 
the proof of this afforded by the Gospels is, 
in all regards, of the most convincing nature, 
and able to endure the severest tests to which 
the most critical investigation can subject it. 
We can not hope, however, that all who 
read the argument shall be convinced. Mere 
argument rarely convinces those of adverse 
views, especially when with those views the 
holders of them are content; and more espe- 


cially still, when such views have been founded 
3 


4 PREFACE 


upon prepossessions or assumptions which 
have been permitted to usurp in the mind the 
place of great fundamental principles of belief. 
When one lays down the arbitrary dictum, as 
Rénan has done, that “supernatural relations 
are not to be accepted as such,’ or with Buch- 
ner asserts the “natural impossibility of a mir- 
acle,” or like Strauss, can speak of belief in 
miracles as “debasing to the reason,’ he vir- 
tually announces a determined adherence to 
his views, and that no amount or kind of evi- 
dence shall affect his disbelief. 

And there are others whom the argument 
can not reach. There can be no argument for 
miracles, either with the man who denies the 
being of a God, or with him who regards the 
Sacred Scriptures as a mere tissue of falsehood 
or fable. With such a one the foundation can 
not be laid upon which to rear an argument. 
To reason with such a one as to deeds which 
Omnipotence alone could have accomplished, 
or as to facts of the past for which no historical 
basis is allowed, were as absurd as had been 


1Life of Jesus, p. 45. 2New Life of Jesus, p. 11. 


PREFACE i: 


the effort to move the world without the Dos 
Pou Sto from which to ply the lever. 

There are those, however, that reject the 
miracles whose minds are yet open to convic- 
tion. Some of these, fully persuaded of the 
great fundamental truths of the Christian re- 
ligion, are the sincere followers of Jesus, not- 
withstanding the miracles have been to them 
a hindrance rather than an aid to faith; while 
others, failing to distinguish between these 
fundamental truths and each particular kind of 
evidence by which these truths have been es- 
tablished, have so associated the miracles with 
the redemptive work of Jesus that in the rejec- 
tion of the former they have, as if bound by 
an invincible necessity, rejected the latter like- 
wise. Such persons are, therefore, disbelievers 
of the gospel more through an error in their 
logic, than from any hostile attitude either to 
the person or to the work of Jesus. 

Both of these classes would believe were the 
evidence properly set before them. They are 
not wedded to their unbelief; they make no 
effort to resist conviction; and in many cases 
would readily yield to any argument that af- 


6 PREFACE 


fords a satisfactory basis for their adoption of 
the commonly-accepted faith. ‘To unbelievers 
such as these, and to all whose minds are suf- 
ficiently free from prejudice or other fetters to 
weigh the evidence aright, the following pages 
have been addressed. It is hoped that the ar- 
gument may contribute something toward 
bringing the lovers of the truth into closer fel- 
lowship of thought and faith upon the subject, 
and the author would be profoundly grateful 
should it substitute belief for unbelief in a 
single mind that struggles with its doubts. 

Such quotations as the reader may desire 
to verify are taken from the following editions 
of the works referred to: 


Huxley’s “Essays on Some Controverted Ques- 
tions,” 1892. 

Huxley’s “Essays on Christianity and Agnosti- 
cism,”’ New York, 18809. . 

Strauss’s “New Faith and Old,” New York, 1873. 

Strauss’s “New Life of Jesus,’ London, 186s. 

Mill’s “Three Essays in Religion,’ New York, 1874. 

Rénan’s “Life of Jesus,” New York, 1864. 

Rénan’s “Life of Jesus,” Thirteenth Edition, Paris, 
1867. 

Rénan’s “The Apostles,’ New York, 1866. 

Hume’s “Essays,” Edinburgh, 1800. 

Rousseau’s ‘Emile,’ Paris, 1851. 


PREFACE 7 


Bayle’s “Historical and Critical Dictionary,’ Lon- 


don, 1734. 
Ockley’s “History of the Saracens,’ Cambridge, 


1757. 
Biichner’s “Force and Matter,” London, 1870. 
Paley’s Works, London, 1817. 

Duke of Argyll’s “Reign of Law,” New York, 1869. 
Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” etc., London, 1815. 


Contents 


CHAPTER I 


STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AND THE 
EVIDENCE 


THE Existence of God and the General Credibility 
of the Gospels assumed.—The Miracles consid- 
ered as Mere Facts in History.—Irrelevancy 
of all Theories of the “Natural’’ or “Super- 
natural.”—The Question not, How are the 
Miracles related to Law, Nature, etc., or How 
were the Miracles produced? but simply this, 
Have we Adequate Proof that the Miracles, 
whatever they were, were really performed by 
Jesus?—The Subject thus placed beyond the 
Sphere of Conflict with Science.—The Scien- 
tific Method of ascertaining the Truth of Re- 
ported Facts.—Such Method adopted in the 
following pages.—Definition of Miracles con- 
sidered.—Not the Supernatural in the Miracles, 
but the Superhuman in the Performer of them 
that gives them Evidential Value.—That the 
Miracles were, in the true sense, Extraordinary 
Deeds performed by Jesus, all that can be as- 
serted here—These Deeds to be proven in the 
same way as other Events in History; but, as 
Extraordinary Deeds, only Extraordinary Evi- 
dence can make them Credible.—Ordinary 
“Authorities” not sufficient for this.—There 
must be an Unbroken Line of Authorities back 
to the Original Witnesses—Other Qualities 
that must mark the Evidence—The Evidence 

9 


Io CONTENTS 


briefly stated in the Narratives of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, John, the Acts, and Paul.—Date, 
Authorship, and General Historical Value of 
these Narratives.—Admissions of Strauss, Ré- 
nan, and Others.—These Admissions as to the 
Written, a virtual admission of the Actual 
Life of Jesus.—Inconsistency of admitting the 
Gospels as in the main Historical, and then 
expunging or explaining away the Miracles. 
Who would deny or eliminate the Battles from 
Thucydides or the Parasangs from Xeno- 
DHONL awe Nees shby Bee Benin eee amen ae tee ¢ 19 


CHAPTER II 


FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE EVI- 
DENCE 


ALonc with their own, the Evangelists give the 
Testimony of numerous other Witnesses; as 
(1) That of the Mixed Multitudes that followed 
Jesus; (2) That of the Scribes and Pharisees, 
Enemies of Jesus; (3) That of the Disciples; 
and (4) That of Jesus Himself.—The Character 
of these several Witnesses described.—The Tes- 
timony of Unbelievers as to the Character of 
Jesus.—Quotations from Mill, Lecky, Rénan, 
and Theodore Parker.—General Features of 
the Evidence considered.—The Evidence the 
same as that upon which we admit the other 
Facts of Jesus’ Life—The Evidence is the Tes- 
timony of the Senses.—Superiority of such Evi- 
dence to that of the Reasoning Faculties.— 
Such Testimony to be admitted, unless either 
the Mind, the Eye, or the Veracity of the Wit- 
nesses is in Question.—Reasons why we may 
not challenge the Witnesses as to either of 


CONTENTS It 
a 


these things.—That both the Friends and Ene- 
mies of Jesus testified, an Argument against 
the Fabrication of the Evidence.—The Number 
of the Witnesses, an Argument against both the 
Designed Deception of the People, and the 
Self-Deception or Delusion of the Witnesses.— 
The Nature of the Miracles forbids their being 
ascribed to the Faith or other Mental Oper- 
ation of the Beholders.—The Cause espoused, 
a guarantee that the Disciples had satisfied 
themselves as to the Genuineness of the Mir- 
acles—Even admitting the Possibility of De- 
ception or Delusion on the part of the Wit- 
nesses, Jesus himself could not have been 
deceived.—Neither could He have practiced 
Deception upon the People.—The Testimony 
of Jesus decisive of the Question.—The Evi- 
dence for the Miracles compared with that 
given for other Events generally, if not uni- 
versally, admitted—Absurdity of comparing 
the Greek and Roman Classic Legends with 
these Deeds of Jesus.—But little better the Evi- 
dence for the Facts of Ancient Authentic His- 
tory.—No more Satisfactory the Evidence for 
much that Science teaches.—While both His- 
toryand Science are compelled to give up Facts 
and Theories as Research is made, the Evi- 
dence for the Miracles better established to-day 
than at any former period.........ccccccccecce 55 


CHAPTER III 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE BY RENAN, 
MILL, HUXLEY, AND HUME 


OBJECTIONS to Supernaturalism in the Miracles.— 
Strauss and Rénan.—Rénan’s “Principle of 
Historical Criticism” reviewed.—Absurdity of 


I2 


CONTENTS 


objecting to the “Supernautral as such.”— 
Each “Supernatural Relation” to be judged by 
its own Evidences.—J. S. Mill’s Objection, that 
“We have not the Direct Testimony of our 
Senses;” that ‘the Supernatural is always mat- 
ter of Inference or Speculation.”—The Objec- 
tion lies with equal force against much of our 
knowledge of the Natural.—Force or Power in 
Nature is known to us only by Inference or 
Speculation.—To be consistent, therefore, Mr. 
Mill must reject all but the bare Facts or Phe- 
nomena of the Natural World. The Falling 
Stone he may admit, but Gravitation he can not 
know.—Mr. Mill’s Objection to the “Evidence 
of Books and Traditions” equally weak. Books 
and Traditions not necessarily false. Not until 
Mr. Mill shall prove Falsehood of the partic- 
ular Books in question can we admit his Ar- 
gument.—Why we do, and should, admit the 
Evidence of others’ Senses to the Miracles.— 
Professor Huxley’s Assault upon the Evi- 
dence.—Unreasonableness of discrediting Evi- 
dence furnished by men of “Ingrained” 
Minds.—The Professor’s Objection either an 
Ingenious Assumption of the Case in hand, or 
the Assertion of a Principle favorable to his 
own Argument.—Weakness of Mr. Hume’s 
Charges against the Evidence.—His Objection 
(1) to the Evidence; (2) to the Miracles them- 
selves—Two Fundamental Errors in the Ar- 
gument: (1) Experience does not form the 
basis of our Beliefs; (2) We have no two op- 
posite Experiences as to Miracles —Mr. Hume 
makes no application of his Argument to the 
Miracles of Jesus—He argues as to Miracles 
in general and Experience in general.—The 


CONTENTS | 13 


only Experience of which we have any Record 
as to the Miracles of Jesus is to the effect that 
THEY WELE PETIOLINIE Vale ce ba caede ceeueasaeeey' sii\,0F 


CHAPTER IV 


ALLEGED INHERENT INCREDIBILITY OF 
MIRACLES 


Tue Argument, more fully considered, as to Vio- 
lation of Law in Nature-——The Impossibility, 
and, therefore, the Incredibility of Miracles.— 
Prevalent Idea of the Relation of Miracles to 
Law.—A Gratuitous Assumption.—Belief or 
Disbelief of Miracles dependent upon the qual- 
ity of our Belief in God.—Given the Existence 
of a God, Personal, Intelligent Ruler of the 
Universe, there is nothing in Miracles at which 
Belief should stagger.—Exceeding our Com- 
prehension or Experience, a far different thing 
from exceeding the Power of God.—Evidence, 
not Comprehensibility, determines our Belief.— 
Admission of Huxley and Mill that the ques- 
tion assumes a new aspect when the idea of 
God is introduced. Mill allows the question 
to be decided by what we know of God’s way 
of governing the world——What we know of 
this considered—The Scientific Method of 
reading the Past applied to the Moral History 
of Mankind.—We may thus read of Miracles 
as we read of immense Fern Growths, Ice- 
bergs, or Glaciers, where none of these now 
exist—Miracles not only Possible, but Prov- 
able; Provable, not by “Inference or Specu- 
lation,” but by the Testimony of Eye-witnesses. 
Mr. Mill’s position here really in our favor.— 


14 CONTENTS 


Huxley’s Error as regards the “Interpretation 
of the Facts.”—Rénan’s Objection of the want 
of “Scientific Conditions’ in the Testimony, 
and the inability of the Witnesses to determine 
the “Miraculous Character of an Act.”—But 
the Witnesses made no profession—gave no 
testimony—as to this: only of the Facts them- 
selves, as Facts, did they testify. Mr. Mill 
again on one side of the Question.—Rénan’s 
Error as to a Matter of Fact. His Commission 
of Savans considered.—These could have de- 
cided upon the Acts of Jesus no better than 
those Disciples did. No “Scientific Condi- 
tions’ necessary that those Witnesses should 
have known whether the Deaf were made to 
hear, the Blind to see, the Dead to rise.— 
With all our Science, plain Common Sense de- 
cides to-day whether men are sick, blind, deaf, 
etc., and whether they have recovered from 
these Ailments.—Scientists are not called in to 
determine whether a man is dead, and cer- 
tainly we need no body of wise Philosophers 
to tell us that a man is alive...... yah ie eg i 113 


CHAPTER V 


GENERAL, REVIEW OF THE ADVERSE ARGU. 
MENT 


INDIRECTION of the Argument opposed to Mir- 
acles.—But rarely, has the Proof itself been 
directly assailed; that is, charged with being 
False or Spurious.—From the Nature of the 
Miracles has been drawn the Argument to dis- 
prove the Fact of Miracles.—Absurdity of all 
such reasoning.—Fallacies of Mill, Huxley, 
Hume, and Others considered.—Bold Asser- 


CONTENTS 15 
aie SALA Mine ns St ai kek ea Ble Radi A a UE A El Meera 
tion, Irrelevancy, Foregone Conclusion, etc., 
abound in all their Arguments.—Statement of 
the Argument by which the Miracles of Jesus 
should be disproved—Such Argument has 
never been attempted.—Three Leading Ques- 
tions to be answered before the Gospel Evi- 
dence can be set aside: First, If the Miracles 
were not performed, how came we to have 
the Testimony in the Case? Second, How 
came it that this Testimony was not contra- 
dicted at the time when it might have easily 
been proven false? Third, How did the World 
get its high estimate of Jesus, and how came 
his Kingdom to be established in the world?— 
Inadequacy of all efforts to prove the Testi- 
mony to be Designed Deception, or to prove 
Delusion on the part of the Witnesses, grant- 
ing the possibility of such Delusion as has been 
asserted of the Witnesses, How can the De- 
lusion be accounted for?—The Myth Theory of 
Strauss; the Theory, besides being in itself Ab- 
surd, contradicts both the Logical and the 
Chronological Order of Events in the Life of 
Jesus.—Rénan’s Application of the Myth to 
the Resurrection of Lazarus. His “Interpre- 
tations” of the Resurrection of Jesus.—General 
Remarks upon these Theories of Rénan and 
Strauss.—More Particular Consideration of 
Rénan on the Resurrection of Jesus. Self- 
contradiction of the Critic. His Hypothesis 
a sad travesty of the Facts and Workings of 
the Human Mind.—The Second Question, Why 
the Testimony was not contradicted?—Not 
only no Contradiction, but “Many Miracles” 
admitted even by the enraged Priests and 
Pharisees that arraigned and crucified Jesus.— 
These Enemies did all in their Power to crush 


16 CONTENTS 


the Cause of Jesus, except this one easy thing 
of denying the Miracles—It belongs to the 
Unbeliever to show either why the Miracles 
were not denied, or, ifthe Denial was ever 
made, why it has not been transmitted to our 
times.—The Third Question, How came the 
World to have its high estimate of Jesus, and 
How came his Kingdom to be established in 


CHAPTER VI 


MIRACLES THE ONLY EXPLANATION OF 
CHRIST’S POWER AND KINGDOM IN THE 
WORLD. GENERAL CHARACTER- 
ISTICS OF THE ARGUMENT 


THE Question asked at the close of the preceding 
Chapter not to be answered by reference to 
the Exalted Personal Character of Jesus and 
the Pure Moral System which he taught.—The 
World in those days, even in our own, not far 
enough advanced to appreciate the Power of 
mere Moral Forces when associated with such 
Repellent Features as marked the Outward Life 
of Jesus.—But granting all that may be claimed 
for the Power of Jesus’ elevated Life and Teach- 
ings, we yet see no answer to our question, 
Without the Miracles Jesus’ Life and Character 
comparatively unknown to us.—The World 
had never, passed its encomiums on Jesus 
merelyin consideration of those Exalted Teach- 
ings; men have never judged their fellow-men 
by what they have taught, but by how they 
have lived and what they have done.—Excerp 
the Miracles, and Jesus did but little to call 


CONTENTS 17 


aa 


forth Praise or Admiration.—Where did Mill, 
Lecky, Parker, etc., get their High Ideas of 
Jesus? Waiving all this, however, let us, con- 
trary to the rule by which men in general are 
judged by their fellow-men, judge Jesus by his 
Words, his Teachings. Even here are we baf- 
fled at the outset, for among these Teachings 
of Jesus we find him most emphatically assert- 
ing that he was a Worker of Miracles,and these 
he offered as Proof of the Reliability of his 
Teachingson all other subjects.—Not sostrange 
that the world to-day entertains its High Regard 
for Jesus; but how came those Contemporaries, 
many of them at least, to have the same High 
Estimate?—Difficult enough for those men to 
have admitted the plain Moral Precepts of 
Jesus.—How, then, yield to those Bold Denun- 
ciations of their Faith and Practices, and those 
Extravagant Claims as to his own Personality, 
that he was Greater than Jonah, a Greater than 
Solomon, had come forth from God, etce.?— 
How, above all, came those Contemporaries 
thus to honor Jesus when he professed, as the 
Proof of these Strange Teachings, Miracles 
which he did not perform?—Not enough to 
say that the Disciples believed that Jesus 
wrought these Miracles, and that this Belief, 
though a Delusion, was sufficient to account 
for their Acceptance of Jesus and his Claims.— 
If the Miracles were believed when they had 
no existence but in the brains of these Wit 
nesses, these latter were all insane, and there 
is no good sense in talking about Delusion, 
Myths, etc., as explaining the Honors paid to 
Jesus.—Sane or insane, such a belief in Mir- 
acles, where no Miracles were wrought, fully 
2 


18 CONTENTS 
ce 


as Contrary to Nature and Experience as the 
Miracles themselves had been.—Leaving, then, 
all consideration of Nature and Experience, we 
come back again to the simple statement that 
Testimony must decide the case.—General 
Characterization of this Testimony and Ré- 
sumé of the Argument.—Logical Results of 
Denial sof the |Miraclesiy iA eee roksan 187 


MIRACLES 


CHART RR id 


Statement of the Question and the 
Evidence 


HERE can be no belief in miracles with- 
out belief in God, and no belief in the 
miracles of Jesus without admission of the 
general credibility of the records of the life 
of Jesus. The reader is, therefore, assumed 
to be a believer in God, and the Gospels are 
assumed to be, in the main, of at least equal 
authority with other ancient historical narra- 
tives. No claim is made, however, for the 
Divine origin or the infallible verity of these 
writings. Our effort shall be, independently of 
any Divine authority in the Gospels, to show 
that the evidence which they afford of the 
miracles of Jesus is such that to doubt or dis- 
believe these miracles is in the highest degree 


unreasonable, if not absurd. 
19 


20 MIRACLES 


We attempt no definition of the miracles; 
and we offer no theory as to their relations to 
law or nature. There is no need of this. We 

view the miracles merely as so many events 
in the life of Jesus, differing from other his- 
torical events solely in being of a most ex- 
traordinary nature, and in being rendered 
credible only by evidence of the most trust- 
worthy and unexceptionable character. Con- 
sidered thus, much that might otherwise be 
said upon the subject is omitted here. We 
enter upon no discussion of the moral or the- 
ological bearings of the question, and except 
so far as may be necessary in the answering 
of objections, we shall have but little to say of 


39 66 


“law,” “order,” or “course of nature.” We 
shall avoid, so far as possible, all terms or 
phrases involving theories as distinguished 
from the facts of miracles, and address ourself 
to the simple question, Did Jesus do the deeds 
called miracles, of which the Gospels tell us? 
a mere question of fact of the very same na- 
ture with, Was Jesus born in Bethlehem? or, 
Was he slain on Calvary? 


In thus reviewing miracles in their own 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE ah 


light, as simple facts in history, we rid our- 
selves at the outset of many difficulties which 
must otherwise beset the subject. Especially 
do we free ourselves from fear of the conflict 
with physical science. Whatever science may 
do with questions of the “natural” or ‘‘super- 
natural,’ she can never disprove as facts these 
mighty works of Jesus. Antecedently to an- 
nouncement of what appears to contradict the 
established truths of science, the latter may 
raise her voice and declare that whatever shall 
thus truly contradict can not be believed; but 
announcement of the fact once made, science 
has nothing to do, if she would be consistent 
with herself, but to examine the proof, and 
accept or reject according to the evidence pre- 
sented. It is thus, and thus only, that science 
has made her advances in the past; thus only 
can she make advancement in the future. 
What would be the case if a number of men, 
or even a single individual of established 
credit, should announce that he had discov- 
ered a new world of extraordinary brilliancy, 
nearer the sun than ourselves, and that upon 
calculation he had ascertained that it would be 


*4e 4 MIRACLES 


seen again at or near a given time? The mere 
sciolist might declare the thing to be impos- 
sible, and dismiss the subject; but the scientist, 
seeking truth and open to conviction of the 
truth, would wait until the time comes round, 
and would then direct his instrument and 
make investigation. In case the planet were 
not seen, he would, if he had it on good au- 
thority that it had been seen by others, con- 
clude that the error had been his own, and 
would wait again for opportunity to renew 
his observations. Convinced at last that the 
new world really existed, he would have little 
or nothing to say of law, order, or irregularity, 
further than that his own and others’ notions 
of these things had been erroneous. ‘This 
new world,” he would doubtless say, ‘breaks 
in upon our old ideas of things—breaks in 
upon gravitation and the ‘order’ of the uni- 
verse; but ‘order’ and ‘gravitation,’ as we have 
understood the terms, must be submitted to 
new investigations. Order or no order, the 
thing is a fact, and it must be believed.” 
Now, what we call the miracles of Jesus are 
/ so many alleged facts, which as facts must be 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 23 


considered regardless of all theories of law or 
nature. Shall we reject the miracles because 
some may interpose, and say that miracles are 
impossible, being inconsistent with the reign 
of law, at variance with the order and harmony 
of the physical universe? If it can be shown 
that no such things have ever taken place, we 
may reasonably exclaim, “No wonder, for 
these things are contradictions of what we 
know of natural laws;”’ but all such declara- 
tions prior to the investigation of the facts 
themselves, and made in order to prove that 
the facts did not occur, are but bold assump- 
tions of the point discussed, and in any other 
sphere of thought than that which opposes 
religion the absurdity of such reasoning would 
be most glaring. 

But where did we get this idea of miracles 
being inconsistent with law in nature? Cer- 
tainly not from science. Science can no more 
define a miracle than she can define eternity or 
God; and the Bible gives us no idea of what 
a mircale is, other than that it is “a sign,” or 
“wonder,” or “mighty deed;” sign, if you 
please, of a power and wisdom not possessed 


24 MIRACLES 


by man; sign of a higher power brought to 
bear upon the ordinary line of cause and effect 
in the physical world. The value of miracle 


as evidence consists in its implying control 


of nature not possible to man, or results 
worked out by processes not within the reach 
of man. But this neither implies the violation, 
nor excludes the operation, of nature’s laws. 


-The miracles themselves may have been 


ie 


wholly within the order of nature, while the 
power that produced them was altogether out 
of and beyond that order. It is not the super- 


‘natural element in the miracle, but the super- 


human power of the performer, that gives it 
weight as evidence of the Divine mission of 
Jesus. If Jesus, therefore, wrought his mir- 
acles by controlling the laws of nature so as to 
make them effect results impossible to their 
ordinary operations and beyond the skill of 
man, the miracles were as really signs, such as 
they were intended to be, as if every law of 
the universe had been violated or suspended. 

To maintain that the miracles were not 
wrought through natural law, is to assume 
that we know something of the way in which 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 25 


they were performed, and that we know, be- 
sides, all the laws of the universe, and all the 
operations which can be accomplished by 
them. Any impossibility which the Christian 
believer may here assert is equally unscientific 
and equally dishonoring to God, with the op- 
positions of those who reject the miracles. 
Neither believer nor disbeliever is authorized 
to assert that miracles are violations of the 
laws of nature. If nature herself produces 
phenomena by combination or adjustment of 
her laws, and if man can, by the same pro- 
cesses, work out results that apparently vio- 
late or contradict all known laws, certainly 
Jesus, whether he was the Mighty God him- 
self, or only an ambassador endowed with Di- 
vine power and wisdom, could have done the 
same. 

We would not be understood as saying that 
it was thus that Jesus wrought his miracles. 
We do not know; and this—that we do not 
_ know—is about all that we do know as to the 
way in which his miracles were performed. 
All that we can safely assert is, that the acts 
ascribed to Jesus under the name of miracles, 


26 MIRACLES 


whether achieved by Divine or other super- 
human power, whether by processes of natural 
law, or by means altogether supernatural, were 
not in the line of ordinary nature. That they 
were extra-ordinary, in the true sense of the 
word, is all that we can properly claim for 
them in any discussion of the evidences by 
which they are to be established. 

In determining, therefore, the question 
whether or not these works of Jesus were 
really performed, it is in the light of history 
merely, not of science or theology, that the 
subject is to be considered; and the question 
must be settled in the very same way in which 
we decide upon other events in history ; that is, 
by appeal to the records of the past. 

Of this last assertion, however, a most im- 
portant qualification must be made. While it 
is by the testimony of history alone that the 
miracles are to be established, the testimony 
must be far superior to that upon which other 
events in history have generally been ad- 
mitted. Where the events narrated involve 
matters of faith and conscience, or are of such 
a marvelous character—so yariant with the 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE oT 


course of nature and the general experience 
of mankind—as were those wonderful deeds 
of Jesus, they can not be admitted upon such 
evidence as satisfies us as to the exploits of a 
Cesar, an Alexander, or a Genghis Khan. 
The mere statements of accredited historians 
can not be admitted here, not necessarily even 
when they are re-enforced by the authorities 
from which they have been derived. There 
must be an unbroken succession of authorities 
back to the dates of the deeds in question, and 
then these deeds must be attested by those 
who had personal knowledge of them, and 
who gave their testimony in circumstances 
which forbid all reasonable imputation to them | 
of any kind of fraud, or even of all kinds of 
self-deception or delusion. 

The testimony must have been given at 
such times and places as afforded ample op- 
portunity for investigation, and the facts them- 
selves must have been of a nature to be cog- 
nized by the senses. No mere mental phe- 
nomenon, no belief, theory, or doctrine, can 
be the subject of testimony. ‘The miracles 
must have been discernible by the senses, and 


28 MIRACLES 


at the same time they must not have tran- 
scended or contradicted the senses. The 
deeds themselves should have been seen, and 
the performers of them seen; and that which 
was performed is required to have been con- 
sistent with what observation in the ordinary 
exercise of our faculties tells us is really true. 

such a miracle, therefore, as is claimed by 
some in the transubstantiation of the mass, 
can not be considered here. The eye does not 
discern the miracle. The performer of the 
miracle is not seen. So far as the senses tes- 
tify, the bread is still bread, and the wine is 
wine, notwithstanding the consecration. ‘The 
miracle cotradicts, and can not, therefore, be 
attested by the senses. 

Not only must the testimony when deliv- 
ered have been admitted by those who had 
opportunity of putting it to the test, but the 
admission must have been general; that is, 
limited to no particular class or party of ob- 


' Servers. It must have been admitted by the 


adherents of all creeds, in both political and 
religious faith, and by the enemies as well as 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 29 


the friends of the witnesses and of him whose 
cause these latter had espoused. 

To the above, and perhaps other tests, the 
critical inquirer may subject the evidence for 
miracles, and he should not be regarded un- 
reasonable or unduly prejudiced, so long as 
in his examinations he confines himself to the 
methods of legitimate historical investigation. 

There are bounds, however, which the in- 
quirer not unfrequently transcends, and some 
of these may now be named. The arbitrary 
rejection, without examination, of the evi- 
dence; the effort to make the peculiar nature 
of the facts a proof that the facts did not oc- 
cur; the rejection of the miracles because they 
lie beyond the range of one’s own, or of the 
general observation of mankind; the charging 
of such numbers of witnesses with moral or 
intellectual infirmity, when no other ground 
can be found for this than the difficulty of ad- 
mitting what they witness to; the assumption 
that miracles are violations of the laws of na- 
ture, when no man knows enough of any of 
these laws to say whether in any given case 


30 MIRACLES 


there has been a violation; asserting the im- 
possibility of a miracle while yet admitting 
the being of a God, or running the difficulty of 
believing in miracles into an assertion of their 
inherent incredibility, as if this belief were con- 
tradictory of the laws of thought or reason,— 
these and other like objections to the miracles 
are not according to the methods of the true 
historian; for these demand that, first of all, 
the evidence be considered, and if this be un- 
impeachable, the miracles are to be admitted, 
unless it can be shown either that the miracles, 
like creeds or dogmas, lie beyond the sphere 
of human testimony, or that Omnipotence 
itself can not work a miracle. 

Let us now see what is the evidence to 
which appeal is made in proof of those won- 
derful works of Jesus. } 

The multitudes that followed Jesus bore 
witness to the miracles; the Jewish high 
priests made open confession of them; Nico- 
demus, a ruler of the Jews, added his testi- 
mony ; Paul, with Thomas and the other apos- 
tles, testified to the resurrection of Jesus from 
the dead, and this, with many other of the 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 31 


miracles, was particularly described by Mat- 
thew, Mark, Luke, and John; while Jesus him- 
self asserted miracles as the credentials of his 
Divine mission to the world, and, without re- 
serve or fear, told the multitudes of both 
friends and enemies not to receive him unless 
they saw the miracles performed. 

For greater convenience of reference, we 
give the miracles in the order in which they 
occur in the Gospels. Their true chronolog- 
ical order is not necessary to the argument. 

The miracles, more or less minutely de- 
scribed, are: 


~-/ Peter’s mother-in-law healed. (Matthew viii, 14.) 
-* The calming of the storm. (Matthew viii, 24.) 
' The devils driven into the swine. (Matthew viii, 28.) 
- Sight given to the blind. (Matthew ix, 27.) 
4 A demoniac restored. (Matthew ix, 32.) 
~ Christ walking on the water. (Matthew xiv, 25.) 
The Syrophenician maiden healed. (Matthew xv, 
22.) 
— Feeding of a multitude. (Matthew xv, 32.) 
Money in the fish’s mouth. (Matthew xvii, 24.) 
72 Sight given to the blind. (Matthew xx, 29.) 
The fig-tree withered. (Matthew xxi, 18.) 
A demoniac restored. (Mark i, 23.) 
~ A leper cleansed. (Mark i, 40.) 
A withered hand restored. (Mark iii, 21.) 
“74 Blind, dumb demoniac restored. (Mark iii, 19.) 
-- Resuscitation of Jairus’s daughter. (Mark vy, 22.) 


32 MIRACLES 


eee ene 


Woman with the issue of blood. (Mark v, 25.) 
Feeding of the multitude. (Mark vi, 34.) 
Deaf stammerer cured. (Mark vii, 31.) 
s0Sight given to the blind. (Mark viii, 22.) 

A demoniac restored. (Mark ix, 14.) 

The draught of fish. (Luke v, 1.) 

A paralytic healed. (Luke v, 17.) 

Centurion’s servant healed. (Luke vii, 1.) 

» 5 Raising of the widow’s son. (Luke vii, 11.) 
Spinal curvature healed. (Luke xiii, 10.) 
Healing of the dropsy. (Luke xiv, 2.) 

The cut-off ear restored. (Luke xxii, 49.) 

Water turned into wine. (John ii, 1.) 
3° Nobleman’s son healed. (John iv, 26.) 

The cripple at Bethesda. (John v, 1.) 

Sight given to a man born blind. (John ix, 1.) 

Resurrection of Lazarus. (John xi, I.) 

2,4 Resurrection of Jesus. (Matthew xxviii, 7; Mark 

xvi, 9, etc.) 


More general statements as to the miracles 
are as follows: 


“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching 
in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel 
of the kingdom, and healing all. manner of 
sickness and all manner of disease among the 
people. And his fame went throughout all 
Syria: and they brought unto him all sick peo- 
ple that were taken with divers diseases and 
torments, and those which were lunatic, and 
those that had the palsy; and he healed 
them.”—Matthew tv, 23. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 33 


“The men marveled, saying, What manner 
of man is this, that even the winds and the sea 
obey him?’’—Matthew viti, 27. 


“Jesus answered and said unto them, Go 
and show John again those things which ye 
do see and hear: the blind receive their sight, 
and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, 
and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up.’”’— 
Matthew x1, 4. 


“And great multitudes came unto him, hav- 
ing with them those that were lame, blind, 
dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast 
them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed 
them.”’—Matthew xv, 30. 


“And it came to pass, that when Jesus had 
finished these sayings, he departed from Gali- 
lee, and came into the coasts of Judea, beyond 
Jordan; and great multitudes followed him; 
and he healed them there.”—Matthew xix, I. 


“And the blind and the lame came to him 
in the Temple; and he healed them.”—Mat- 
thew xxi, 14. 


“And they were all amazed, insomuch that 
they questioned among themselves, What 
thing is this? What new doctrine is this? for 
with authority commandeth he even the un- 

3 


34 MIRACLES 


clean spirits, and they do obey him.’”—Mark 
Tete 7e 4 

“And at even, when the sun did set, they 
brought unto him all that were diseased, and 
them that were possessed with devils. And all 
the city was gathered together at the door. 
And he healed many that were sick of divers 
diseases, and cast out many devils.”—Mark 
Bide 

“And whithersoever he entered, into vil- 
lages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick 
in the streets, and besought him that they 
might touch if it were but the border of his 
garment: and as many as touched him were 
made whole.’’—Mark vi, 56. 

“And were beyond measure astonished, 
saying, He hath done all things well: he mak- 
eth both the deaf to hear and the dumb to 
speak.’”’—Mark vii, 37. 

“And they were all amazed, and spake 
among themselves, saying, What a word is 
this!’ For with authority and power he com- 
mandeth the unclean spirits, and they come 
out.”—Luke iy, 36. 

“Now when the sun was setting, all they 
that had any sick with divers diseases brought 
them unto him; and he laid his hands on every 
one of them, and healed them.”—Luke iv, 4o. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 35 


“And it came to pass on a certain day, as 
he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and 
doctors of the law sitting by, which were come 
out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and 
Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was 
present to heal them.”—Luke v, 17. 


“This beginning of miracles did Jesus in 
Cana of Galilee, and his disciples believed on 
him.”’—John ii, 11. 

“Nicodemus . . . said unto him, 

We know that thou art a teacher come from 
God: for no man can do these miracles that 
thou doest, except God be with him.’”’—John 
SUES Whee 

“T have greater witness than that of John: 
for the works which the Father hath given me 
to finish, the same works that I do, bear wit- 


ness of me, that the Father hath sent me.”— 
John v, 36. 


“And a great multitude followed him, be- 
cause they saw the miracles which he did.” — 
John vi, 2. 

“The works that I do in my Father’s name, 
they bare witness of me.”—John x, 25. 


“Tf I do not the works of my Father, be- 
lieve me not. But if I do, though ye believe 
not me, believe the works; that ye may know, 


36 MIRACLES 


and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in 
him.”’—John x, 37, 38. 

“Then gathered the chief priests and the 
Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? 
for this man doeth many miracles. If we let 
him thus alone, all men will believe on him: 
and the Romans shall come and take away 
both our place and nation.’’—John xi, 47. 


“The people therefore that was with him 
when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and 
raised him from the dead, bare record. For 
this cause the people also met him, for that 
they heard that he had done this miracle.”— 
John xii, 17. 

“Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of 
God. . by miracles and wonders and 
signs, aren God did by him in the midst of 
you, as ye yourselves also know.”’—Acts il, 22. 


We have the following accounts of the 
resurrection of Jesus: | 


“Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he 
is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth 
before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him. 
And as they went to tell his disciples, 
behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And 
they came and held him by the feet, and wor- 
shiped him.”—Matthew xxviii, 7. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 37 


“Now when Jesus was risen early the first 
day of the week, he appeared first to Mary 
Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven 
devils. And she went and told them that 
had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 
And they, when they heard that he was alive, 
and had been seen of her, believed not. And 
after that he appeared in another form unto 
two of them, as they walked, and went into the 
country. And they went and told it unto the 
residue: neither believed they them.’”—Mark 
Xvi, 9. 


“Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, 
and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But 
they were terrified and affrighted, and sup- 
posed that they had seen a spirit. And he said 
unto them, Why are ye troubled? And why 
do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my 
hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle 
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and 
bones as ye see me have. And when he had 
thus spoken he showed them his hands and 
his feet.” —Luke xxiv, 36. 

“Then were the disciples glad, when they 
saw the Lord.”—John xx, 20. 


“But Thomas, one of the Twelve, called 
Didymus, was not with them when Jesus 
came. ‘The other disciples therefore said unto 


38 MIRACLES 


him, We have seen the Lord. But he saith 
unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the 
print of the nails, and put my finger into the 
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his 
side, I will not believe. And after eight days 
again his disciples were within, and Thomas 
with them: then came Jesus, the doors being 
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace 
be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, 
Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; 
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into 
my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 
And Thomas answered and said unto him, 
My Lord and my God.”—John xx, 24. 


“To whom also he showed himself alive 
after his passion by many infallible proofs, 
being seen of them forty days, and speaking 
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of 
God.” —Acts i, 3. 


‘Him, being delivered by the. determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have 
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and 
slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed 
the pains of death: because it was not possible 
that he should be holden of it.”—Acts ii, 23. 


“This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof 
we all are witnesses.”’—Acts ii, 32. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 39 


“T delivered unto you first of all that which 
I also received, how that Christ died for our 
sins according to the Scriptures; and that he 
was buried, and that he rose again the third 
day according to the Scriptures: and that he 
was seen of Cephas, then of the Twelve: and 
after that, he was seen of above five hundred 
brethren at once; of whom the greater part 
remain unto this present, but some are fallen 
asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then 
of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen 
of me also, as of one born out of due time.” — 
Paul, in 1 Corinthians xv, 3. 


Such is the evidence proposed of the mir- 
acles and resurrection of Jesus, the testimony 
of living witnesses, all of whom, with the ex- 
ception of the Apostle Paul, were either the 
daily companions of Jesus, or the occasional 
attendants upon his ministry, or, as in the case 
of Luke, had gotten their information from 
“eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.” 

It will doubtless be conceded that this evi- 
dence in itself is all that could be desired. 
Nothing could be stated more clearly or more 
definitely than that the miracles were per- 


40 MIRACLES 


formed, and that Jesus rose from the dead: 
and the most determined skeptic could not 
demand that the evidence should be more 
abundant. 

We must now consider the sources from 
which we get this evidence,—four little books 
which have been ascribed to the writers al- 
‘ready named, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 
together with occasional statements in the 
Acts of the Apostles and in the writings of 
the Apostle Paul. 

There can be no objection to our omitting 
discussion of the dates and authorship of these 
writings, provided we claim no more than has 
been admitted by those who oppose the mir- 
acles. For sake of the argument, we are will- 
ing to let Renan describe these points. 

By Rénan, Luke is said to have composed 
his Gospel soon after the siege of Jerusalem, 
which occurred in A. D. 70. The Gospel itself 
is spoken of as “a work written entirely by the 
same hand, and of the most perfect unity”’— 
the work of a man who “selects, prunes, com- 
bines.”! Matthew he places at an earlier date, 


1Life of Jesus, pp. 18, 19. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 4I 


and Mark even before Matthew,” and after 
expressing the opinion that both these Gos- 
pels had received additions from earlier 
sources, he speaks of them as bearing “not 
wrongfully the name of ‘Gospel According to 
Matthew,’ and ‘Gospel According to Mark.’ ’” 
“Matthew clearly deserves unlimited confi- 
dence as regards the discourses.”* “Mark, 
the interpreter of Peter,” gives us “narratives 
and sayings, composed from the accounts and 
reminiscences of the Apostle Peter,’ and “‘is 
full of minute observations coming without 
any doubt from an eye-witness.’ 

John’s Gospel is placed “towards the close 
of the first century." Our critic says that its 
worthiness, of “high consideration and often 
of preference, is demonstrated, both by the in- 
ternal evidence and by the examination of the 
document itself, in a manner that leaves noth- 
ing to be desired.”® Comparing the works of 
the three Synoptists,® Matthew, Mark, Luke, 


*Life of Jesus; pp. 19,.35.\\\; > Lbid,p..22)) 4 Tbid.'p. 34, 
SIbid. p.20. *Ibidip.35. "Ibid: p. 25. | * Ibid. p. 25. 
®Dr. Schaff calls attention to the fact that this is the 
proper form of the word in English: Synoptic is the 
adjective, or the German noun.—Church History, Vol. J. 


42 MIRACLES 


to the Memorabilia of Socrates, by Xenophon, 
and the Gospel of John to the “Dialogues of 
Plato,” and giving preference to the former 
as expositions of the “Socratic Teaching,” he 
calls the author of the Fourth Gospel “the 
better biographer” of Jesus, because just as 
Plato “knew most important things in regard 
to the life of Socrates, of which Xenophon 
was entirely ignorant,” so the fourth evangel- 
ist “was better acquainted with the external 
circumstances of the life’ of Jesus than were 
those “whose memories made up the Synoptic 
Gospels.”?° 


, 


“Upon the whole,” says Rénan, “I accept 
the four Canonical Gospels as authentic. All, 
in my judgment, date back to the first century, 
and they are substantially by the authors to 
whom they are attributed.’’"? 

Not that we indorse everything here said, 
do we quote thus freely from the Vie de Jesus: 
we quote merely to give the other side of this 
question the benefit of its own teachings as 
to the matters of date and authorship. 

With Rénan, therefore, as our authority, 


10ife of Jesus, p. 33. Ibid. p. 34. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 43 
SUNT ee 


we assign Mark’s Gospel to a date not far 
from the middle of the first century ; Matthew 
and Luke somewhat later, with John about 
the year A. D. go—“all of them authentic,” 
and each of them having its own peculiar ex- 
cellences and special claim upon the respectful 
consideration of the reader. 

If the above dates are accurate, or proxi- 
mately so, better times could not have been 
selected for the composition of the Gospels— 
better, that is, for faithful, discriminating his- 
tories of the life of Jesus. The histories were 
thus written at sufficient remoteness from the 
events narrated to enable the writers to digest 
both their own personal recollections and the 
accounts which, from other sources, may have 
been put into circulation among the people; 
and yet not time enough had elapsed to dim 
the memory or otherwise distort the picture 
which had been retained of Jesus and his 
mighty works, or, in the language of Rénan, 
“the excellence of the Master, his miracles, and 


his teachings.’'2, Nor had the generations 


Fn ae he Ne Sh ete) 2 
“Life of Jesus, p. 39. 


44 MIRACLES 


passed away which might have critically de- 
cided upon the merits of these writings. 

These are facts which indicate that, not 
only were the original authors of the Gospels 
careful in their work of composition or selec- 
tion, but that the most critical caution was ob- 
served on the part of those who subsequently 
adopted these works into the Sacred Canon. 
Just as the disciples selected from among 
themselves to take the place of Judas,’* only 
one who had been both their own and Jesus’ 
associate from the beginning of his ministry 
to his resurrection from the dead, and one, 
therefore, like themselves an eye-witness both 
of the other miracles and of the resurrection, 
so in their narratives of the life of Jesus the 
successors of these disciples were cautious to 
select for publication to the world and to fu- 
ture ages only those reminiscences or tra- 
ditions in the compilation of which there could 
be least room for,error, and as to the truth of 
which there could be least occasion for dis- 
belief or doubt. Out of a number of histories 
or memorabilia of Jesus they selected only 


18 Acts i, 22. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 45 


those of the four evangelists of whom John 
and Matthew had been the daily companions 
of Jesus; Luke had carefully “traced all things 
from the first,” following the accounts only of 
“eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word,’’'* 
and Mark had written as the amanuensis of 
the Apostle Peter. Of these writers, there- 
fore, it may be said that they give us substan- 
tially only the testimony of eye-witnesses to 
the events recorded. And this fact must now 
be emphasized, that among all the distin- 
guished characters of ancient times we can 
find none whose life may be regarded as so 
carefully or so accurately given as is that of 
Jesus. 

We say these Gospels were selected from a 
number of memoirs known to the early 
Church. That other narratives of the life of 
Jesus were in existence before the formation 
of the Sacred Canon is a fact well known; and 
some of these were in almost equal esteem 
with the other parts of Scripture. The “Acts 
of Pilate,” for instance, is appealed to by both 
Tertullian and Justin Martyr, the latter of 


14T uke i, 1, 2. 


46 MIRACLES 


whom tells us that these Acts “were recorded 
under Pontius Pilate.”?® So early a writer as 
Origen cites “The Gospel According to the 
Egyptians,’’ the “Gospel According to the He- 
brews,” the “Gospel of Matthias,” the ‘Gospel 
of Peter,” with several others of like char- 
acter; and by the time the Canon was ar- 
ranged, more than one hundred of the Apocry- 
phal writings, counting “Acts” and “Epistles” 
as well as “Gospels,” were noticed by the 
“Fathers,” near one-half of which are still 
extantiis 

But there is good evidence that many 
works of this kind had been written before our 
Gospels were composed. 

I. Quotations are found in the “Fathers,” 
of sayings of Jesus, which are not given in our 
Gospels, and these sayings, if not mere loose, 
unwritten tradition, must have been extracted 
from books not now known to the world. “It 
is more blessed to give than to receive,” is an 


Justin Martyr: “First Apology,” page 28. Oxford, 
1861. 

McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia: Art. “ Apoc- 
rypha,” where a complete list of these writings is given. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 47 
IR NAAR IE BI NAD EE A EE A eee ad bdo Aa Rt aad ASTI 


instance in kind, given by Paul himself,17 and 
the apostle’s caution to Timothy against giv- 
ing heed to “myths and endless genealogies”’!8 
looks very much like a reference to writings 
concerning Jesus which he regarded mythical. 

2. St. Paul again, in his famous chapter on 
the resurrection,!® cites “Scriptures” which 
narrated the rising of Jesus from the dead. 
These Scriptures could not have been any of 
those now called Gospels; for (1) the account 
there given was, in several particulars, differ- 
ent from any now known to us, and (2) if the 
generally accepted chronology be correct, the 
Epistle to the Corinthians was written several 
years before the earliest of our Gospels was 
published to the world. The dates of these 
Gospels, according to Rénan, have already 
been given to the reader. According to Dr. 
Schaff, a more recent, and, to many, a more 
acceptable authority than Rénan, all these 
Gospels belong to the “seventh decade;” that 
is, between 60 A. D. and 70 A. D., while this 


Epistle was composed A. D. 57.2 

see lk SNES Sa RAT RE NLR devs ON eR ALT NOL Palade tea AA 
17 Acts xx, 35. rca Deb ragok iy Aer (Gor, eV. 
*® History of the Church, Vol. I, pages 582, 758. 


48 MIRACLES 


3. Besides this evidence from Paul, we 
have the express testimony of Luke that be- 
fore his Gospel was undertaken, “many had 
taken in hand to set forth in order a declara- 
tion of those things which were surely be- 
lieved’?! among the followers of Jesus. 

_ Now, the fact that from so many writings, 
/ only four small volumes, of a few hours’ read- 
ing each, should have been authorized as con- 
taining the true life of Jesus, and that these 
four should so fully agree in all the essential 
features of that life, is evidence that can not be 
disregarded, that the Gospels, as we now have 
them, were compiled with the ereatest pos- 
sible care, and were sanctioned by the Church 
only after thorough investigation of their con- 
tents. 

But with all this evidence of painstaking 
accuracy in the compilation of these writings, 
there are striking peculiarities of an apparently 
opposite kind which must not be passed in 
silence. We observe, for instance, an almost 
total disregard of many of the most important 
principles of historical composition. ‘There is 


4 Luke i, 1. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 49 


Cit CAN ROTO ce SSRN MR UE EE ae ah aL 
no proper observance of proportion as regards 
the prominence of the events narrated; both 
deeds and discourses are given out of their 
true order or connections; liberties, in the 
quotations from the Old Testament, are taken 
with the text, which modern usage could not 
permit; there is total absence of effort to 
adorn or amplify, or even to set in their true 
light, many of the most interesting portions 
of the history; the most wonderful, and, ap- 
parently, the most trivial incidents are de- 
scribed in the same plain, matter-of-fact style, 
and with equal length or brevity of descrip- 
tion; facts are related by each with seeming 
unconcern as to whether, in the particular in- 
cidents, his own account agrees or not with 
the accounts of his fellow disciples,—and all 
this with a want of chronological precision 
and biographical completeness which would 
be fatal to other historical compositions. 

But what is most remarkable in these de- 
fects or blemishes, if such they be, we see only 
proof of the value of these writings, when they 
are considered—as in the present discussion 


they should be—merely as the sources or 
4 


50 MIRACLES 


authorities of our knowledge of the acts and 
sayings of Jesus. The disagreement as to 
incidents only makes more manifest the agree- 
ment as to the main facts presented. Profes- 
sor Huxley’s glorying is vain, as he discovers 
the discrepancy in the accounts of the Gada- 
rene miracle as to the number of men pos- 
sessed of evil spirits,?* for the writers all agree 
in the expulsion of the demons into the swine, 
which Professor Huxley himself confesses to 
be the “essential point.” As here, so 
throughout these books discrepancies are 
such as must inevitably exist in four different 
recitals made by as many different men on 
different occasions, and they only afford the 
stronger evidence that each man presented the 
truth of things as his own eyes had seen them, 
and the disagreements in non-essentials set 
before us in better light, and better proven, 
the essential facts in Jesus’ life. 

So of other objections made by some as to 
the style of these biographies. The want of 
arrangement so conspicuous, the lack of rhe- 


Cf, Matt. viii, 28, with Mark v, 2, and Luke viii, 27. 
* Christianity and Agnosticism, page 20. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE 51 


torical effort, the easy, natural manner of nar- 
rating the mighty deeds, the absence of appeal 
to the reader’s sense of the marvelous, the 
unconcern apparent at least as to the reader’s 
acceptance or rejection of the narratives,—all 
these, along with the direct, clear, bold, un- 
adorned statement of facts, without equivoca- 
tion, self-contradiction, or concealment, make 
these Gospels appear to be the work of honest, 
simple-minded men, whose only purpose was 
the transmission to posterity and throughout 
the world of the main deeds and teachings of 
their Master. 

Taken all in all, therefore, these peculiar- 
ities add greatly to the prima facie credibility 
of the Gospel histories. They sink the authors 
into obscurity, they bring out their subject 
into the bolder relief, and present us Jesus the 
more fully as a real, living being, moving, 
speaking, acting before our eyes. 

All this has been fully admitted by the 
ablest opposers of the miracles. More than a 
century ago Rousseau declared that “the life 
and sayings of Socrates were not nearly so 


52 MIRACLES 


well attested as those of Jesus ;’* and recently 
John Stuart Mill: “It is useless to say that the 
Christ of the Gospels is not historical: his 
character will abide after criticism has done 
its utmost.”*° Strauss speaks of the first three 
Gospels as “the reminiscences of the very man, 
gathered and garnered on the very spot;’%® 
while Rénan, as we have seen, says that they 
are “all authentic,” and elsewhere speaks of 
them “as better than formal, authoritative his- 
tory.” Matthew “clearly deserves unlimited 
confidence as regards the discourses ;”27 Mark 
presents us both “the narratives and sayings 
‘of Jesus’ full of minute observations coming 
without any doubt from an eye-witness;” 
Luke is an author who “selects, prunes, com- 
bines,” while John is even “a better biog- 
rapher” than either of these, inasmuch as he 
“was better acquainted with the external cir- 
cumstances of the life of Jesus.” 

It is thus seen that, whatever their idea of 
_ the miracles, the best known and most fre- 


eSNG Ea kad den el oe OU et) ie wa aad ee)» 
*4Himile, p. 370. 
* Three Essays in Religion, p. 353. 
*®Old Faith and New, p. 57. ” Life of Jesus, p. 34. 


QUESTION AND THE EVIDENCE a 


quently read among the authors who deny the 
miracles give unequivocal testimony to the 
writings in which the miracles have been nar- 
rated. This testimony is virtually given to 
the miracles themselves, and but for the gen- 
eral character of the works from which the 
above quotations have been made, the authors 
of them might be understood as here contra- 
dicting their own denials of the miracles. Of 
course, however, we can not urge this point. 
All that we now claim is the full admission of 
the high character of the sources from which 
we derive our evidence of the miracles, and 
consequently the no less full admission of the 
evidence as we propose to present it in the 
argument. 

The testimony being admitted as part of 
the written life of Jesus, we can not see how 
the miracles can be denied as part of the actual 
life. These are so inwoven with the general 
text of the Gospels that to eliminate them 
would be such a disintegration of the records 
as no just criticism could allow; to believe 
them legendary or fabulous would be to throw 
discredit upon the history from first to last. 


54 MIRACLES 


There might be reasons for expunging here 
and there the record of some particular deed, 
just as one might challenge the authenticity 
of certain passages in Thucydides or Xeno- 
phon; but to assert that the main story of the 
“Gospels is veritable history, while all accounts 
of miracles are false, is equally absurd with 
admitting the works of Thucydides and Xeno- 
phon to be genuine histories, and yet all ac- 
counts of battles in the one, or of stathmi and 
parasangs in the other, are to be discarded. 


CHAPTER II 
Further Consideration of the Evidence 


O much, in brief, for the writings which 
contain. the evidence. The authors of 
these writings, it must be borne in mind, while 
bearing testimony of their own, have recorded 
that of large numbers of others whose evi- 
dence is equally valid and equally trustworthy. 
Long before the evangelists had composed 
their histories, the apostles, other disciples, 
the mixed multitudes of followers, Jesus him- 
self, and the Jewish Sanhedrim had testified to 
the miracles. ‘The testimony of these is none 
the less valid because they had not themselves 
set it down on parchment. They had given 
their evidence in person, with the living voice, 
and many of them were yet alive when the evi- 
dence was published to the world. 
Let us now see more particularly who these 
other witnesses are. 
As to the unnamed multitudes that wit- 


nessed to the miracles, we can only take it for el 


99 


N 
56 MIRACLES 


granted that they were men and women of the 
average intellectual and moral character. To 
suppose otherwise would be in violation of all 
probability, and would evince an unfair spirit 
inthe argument. The testimony of these mul- 
titudes is all that could be desired. ‘What 
manner of man is this, that the winds and seas 
obey him?’ 

“With authority commandeth he even the 
unclean spirits, and they obey him.’? “He 
hath done all things well: he maketh both the 
deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.’’ 

But who were the scribes and Pharisees 
that testified? Weknow them well. No class 
of men in history is better known—known as 
men of the most bigoted sectarian zeal; de- 
voted to tradition; opposed to all innovation 
that might contradict their usages or their 
ideas; servants of the letter rather than the 
spirit of the truth; bitter enemies of Jesus, and 
very naturally so, for at their errors, their 
blind follies, and hoary superstitions, Jesus 
had, from the first, been leveling his severest 
denunciations. It was these men, chiefly, that 


Matt. viii, 27, ?QLuke iv, 36, %Mark vii, 37. 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 57 


persecuted Jesus, thwarted him at every step, 
and at length when they could not otherwise 


prevail, nailed him to the cross. These men, — _ 


with all their hate, prejudice, malice, bore wit- 
ness to the miracles. “This man doeth many 
miracles. If we let him alone, all men will be- 
lieve on him, and the Romans will come and 
take away both our place and nation.’ 

Of the disciples who testified we know this: 
whatever may have been their faults, their 
want of intellectual or social culture, or other 
defects of character, they were men of strong, 
determined will; men who, as they could not 
be forced into recanting what they had said, 
and believed that they had seen, so neither 
were they likely to be persuaded or deluded 
into believing as seen that which they had 
not seen. ‘They were not weak, silly men, 
such as easily believe the marvelous merely 
because or when it supports their own views 
or interests. On the other hand, they were 


eminently skeptical men; they were the first — 


to doubt the resurrection of Jesus from the 
dead; they contemptuously jeered at the re- 


‘John xi, 47, 48. 


58 MIRACLES 


port of Mary,° and in no one instance did they 
credit each other’s testimony on the subject. 
They must see, each with his own eyes, and 
even then they did not believe until they had 
taken hold of the body and satisfied them- 
selves by the double evidence of sight and 
touch that the apparition before them was 
really Jesus.© These men were heroes in the 
cause for which they labored. In strength of 
soul and in hazardous achievement they stand 
alone in history. They went forth, friendless 
and unaided, in the midst of opposition, scorn, 
persecution, and dangers of death, to establish 
throughout the world what was apparently the 
most absolutely hopeless enterprise ever con- 
ceived by man; and they did establish it; in 
the words of their enemies, they “turned the 
world upside down,’” and to-day the world 
advances and prospers just in proportion as it 
regards what these men said and did. What 
they chiefly did and said was in testimony of 
Jesus, his miracles, and his resurrection. 
Jesus himself bore witness to the miracles. 
He did this in the most direct and positive 


——. 
a 


STuke xxiv, 11, ‘Luke xxiv, 36. ‘Acts xvii, 6, 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 59 


manner. When the Baptist sent to inquire 
whether or not Jesus was the Christ, Jesus re- 
plied, “Go and show John again those things 
which ye do hear and see: the blind receive 
their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are 
raised up.” 

On another occasion, immediately after the 
working of a miracle, he made such emphatic 
proclamation of himself as the worker of mir- 
acles, and that, too, in the midst of an angry 
mob, as to lay upon the miracles the entire 
weight of the cause he had undertaken. “If I 
do not the works of my Father, believe me 
not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, 
believe the works; that ye may know and be- 
lieve that the Father is in me, and I in him.’” 

Of the character of this witness there is no 
room for doubt. Even in his own day, not 
only those who had known him merely in 
common fame, but those who by intimate as- 
sociation knew him best, ascribed to him a 
character above all that is ordinarily called 
good or great. Far beyond all contempo- 


8John x, 37, 38. 


60 MIRACLES 


raries did they rank him. Some believed that 
he was Elijah; others that he was Jeremiah or 
another of the olden prophets come back to 
the world. Herod was not the only one who 
believed that he was John the Baptist risen 
from the dead.® Pilate even called him “that 
just person.”!° The Centurion and those with 
him hesitated not to pronounce him even “a 
Son of God.”!! Peter confessed that he was 
“Christ the Son of the living God.”!? 

This high estimate of Jesus has never 
changed. Whatever have been the varying 
opinions of men as to his Divine personality 
and the religion which he taught, there has 
been no variance as to the exalted character 
which Jesus displayed in his mere human re- 
lations. Mr. J. S. Mill ranks him, “even in the 
estimation of those who have no belief in his 
inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of 
sublime genius of whom our species can 
boast.”48 Mr. Lecky considers him “the ideal 
character who has done more to regenerate 


9Mark vi, 16; Matt. xvi, 14. 10Matt. xxvii, 24. 
Matt. xxvii, 54. 12 Matt. xvi, 16, 
18 Three Essays in Religion, pp. 254, 255. 


Y _—— 


PE as 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE oI 


and soften mankind than all the exhortations 
of moralists.’’!* 

“The wise Jesus,’ “the incomparable 
man,” “in the first rank of the grand family | 
of the true sons of God we must place Jesus,” 
is the enthusiastic utterance of Rénan. ‘God 
does not speak to him from without; God is 
in him. . . . He lives in the bosom of 
God by uninterrupted communication. 
Whatever be the surprises of the future, Jesus 
will never be surpassed. . . . All ages 
will proclaim that among the sons of men 
there has been born none greater than 
Jestis..7° 

Theodore Parker testifies that “He unites 
in himself the sublimest precepts and the di- 
vinest practices, thus more than realizing the 
dreams of prophets and sages; rises free from 
all prejudice of age, nation, or sect; gives free 
range to the Spirit of God in his breast, 
and pours forth a doctrine beautiful as the 


light, sublime as heaven, and true as God.’’?® 


M4 History of Rationalism, Vol. II, p. 88. 

1 Life of Jesus, pp. 94-104. 

16 Discourses of Religion, quoted by Dr. Bushnell in 
“Nature and the Supernatural.” 


62 MIRACLES 


It were needless to comment on the char- 
acter of this witness. A few remarks only we 
offer upon the evidence as a whole. It is the 
very same evidence by which we ascertain the 
other events of Jesus’ life. Where Jesus was 
born; where and how he passed his boyhood; 
what he taught, how he taught; whom he 
made disciples; how he died and was buried,— 
these are all to be determined by the Gospel 
histories, and it is to these alone as the simple 
recitals of the acts of Jesus, that we appeal for 
proof that among these acts the miracles are 
found. Viewing, then, the miracles as mere 
"facts of the past,/without regard either to the 
agencies by which, or the purpose for which, 
they are said to have been performed,\we have 
the same evidence for them as for those other 
more ordinary events as to which no doubt 
exists. And we must bear in mind that the 


fant evidence is that of the senses, not of the intel- 


lect or understanding; that is, the witnesses 
testified as to what their eyes had seen, and 
not as to beliefs which had been adopted from 
a course of reasoning. Had this latter been 
the case, their testimony had been of little 


. 
—— eo 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 63 


worth, for testimony can not be admitted 
as to beliefs or conclusions arrived at by rea- 
soning. The logical faculty is always liable to 
err except when its decisions are immediate, 
as when the senses are addressed or where 
mathematical demonstration is employed. 
That this is so is seen in the fact that from 
the same premises different conclusions are 
drawn by even the wisest and best of men, and 
when the conclusions differ all but one must 
be erroneous, and even this may not be cor- 
rect. But this uncertainty does not connect 
with beliefs founded upon what the senses tell 
us. A number of men looking upon a stream 
or mountain may differ in their estimates of 
distance, magnitude, elevation, or other things 
not discernible by the eye; but not one of them 
believes that the mountain is the stream or 
the stream the mountain, and not one of them, 
on a different occasion, believes that he sees 
such things where none exist. What the eye 
sees, or seems to see, the mind believes. The 
belief is immediate, without doubt or reason- 
ing; not only immediate, but irresistible; not 
only so, but true; that is, the things seen are 


f 


/ 


fo 
f 


64 MIRACLES 


actual existences, and not mere states or con- 
ditions of the mind. Just as when one sees 
the sun to rise it is because the sun has risen, 
so when those multitudes saw, or believed 
they saw, the miracles, the miracles had been 
performed. There can be no denial here, ex- 
cept by showing either that those who re- 
ported the miracles were in a dream, or had 
minds abnormally affected, or eyes diseased, 
so as to be unable to see aright; or that noth- 
ing at all was seen, and the witnesses were 
intentionally attempting to deceive the people. 

Now, both the number and variety of the 
witnesses preclude the idea either of their de- 
signed deception of the people, or of their 
being themselves deceived upon the subject. 
It must be noted here that there is no vari- 
ation in the testimony as to these acts of Jesus. 
The witnesses differed greatly in their ideas 
as to who Jesus was, some believing that he 
was the Baptist risen, others Elias or one of 
the prophets, others an agent of the prince of 
devils, others the Messiah, the Son of God; 
but as to the miracles, there is in all their utter- 
ances not one word of doubt, controversy, or 


—— ee ee ee ee eee =, =e 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 65 


dissent. There is here perfect agreement both i 


of the evangelists among themselves, and of 
the disciples, of the general multitudes, of 
Jesus himself, and of the scribes and Pharisees, 
his enemies. If, therefore, a single individual 
of those witnesses told the truth as to what 
had been done by Jesus, the truth was equally 
told by all; and so, if one of them told a de- 
signed falsehood, or testified erroneously be- 
cause of defective vision or disordered mental 
action, we must believe that all alike were sub- 
ject to influences that prevented them from 
seeing or telling the truth of things. Now, 
while we may easily see that what is told by 
a number of men in different, independent 
narratives must be the truth, it would be diffi- 
cult to find a man not wholly enslaved to prej- 
udice who could admit that great multitudes 
at different times, in different places, could, 
even by prearranged compact, tell the same 
falsehood, or that they could all display the 
same peculiarities of defective vision, or all 
alike be deluded by the same phantasmagoria 
of the brain; and that such numbers of men 


could testify erroneously to seeing the same 
ni 


66 MIRACLES 
Pee ae Lo Makan Moll ki NL vA Ls 


things when different causes had operated to 
falsify their visions, is yet more difficult to 
admit. 

Moreover, the circumstances were such 
that the witnesses could not have been mis- 
taken as to the nature of the facts attested by 
them. The evidence is that the miracles were 
performed openly in different localities, and in 
full view of multitudes of all classes of men in 


both Church and State. There were neve Ie 


‘chosen places, no screens or curtains, no me- 
diums or “professors,” that could suggest the 
idea of special contrivance or collusion. ‘The 
witnesses had, therefore, every opportunity of 
testing the genuineness of the miracles, and 
they had the very same means of making satis- 
factory tests that could be employed to-day. 
All that was necessary to this was that they 
could see: see that the leper was healed, that 
the blind were made to see, that the dead were 
raised. | 

And, then, the miracles were generally of 
such a kind that their genuineness could not 
be doubted. They could not be ascribed to 


the subject’s faith, imagination, or other oper- 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 67 


ations of the mind. In many instances they 
were wrought upon inanimate objects, as in 
the blasting of the fig-tree, turning the water 
into wine, finding the coin in the fish’s mouth, 
walking upon the water, calming the storm, 
and multiplying the loaves and fishes. 

It is, of course, readily granted that in the 
healing of the sick the patient’s faith might 
have effected much, and it would be no dis- 
honor to Jesus to admit that there might have 
been instances in which Jesus himself exerted 
no power in the healing. The fact, however, 
is that very seldom do we find the patient 
exercising faith. In by far the larger number 
of cases where faith was manifested or de- 
clared, it was the faith, not of the persons upon 
whom the miracles were performed, but of 
those who made the request of Jesus in behalf 
of others. Thus it was the faith of the cen- 
turion, not of his servant who was healed; 
the faith of Jairus, not of his daughter who 
was resuscitated; of the sisters, Martha and 
Mary, not of their brother who was called 
forth from the tomb; and so of other instances 
that need not be referred to. If the reader 


68 MIRACLES 


will review, one by one, the different miracles, 
he will be astonished to see how few were con- 
sequent upon, or in any wise connected with 
the faith of those who were the recipients of 
the benefits bestowed by Jesus. Nothing 
could be more absurd, then, than the effort 
made by some to ascribe these deeds of Jesus 
to the faith, hope, or other mental state or ac- 
tion of the subject. 

Again, the cause supported by the miracles 
insures us against the idea of those witnesses 
being mistaken as to what was done by Jesus. 
That it was a cause upon which depended the 
most momentous issues—a cause the most 
difficult to establish the world had known, a 
cause in many regards the most offensive to 
human reason, and apparently opposed to at 
least all earthly interests—must have made 
those followers of Jesus think long and well, 
and try all possible tests, before giving in to 
what made such severe demands upon their 
confidence, and such sacrifices of their per- 
sonal ease and comfort. Those men were 
no more likely than we of to-day to be- 
lieve that the Son of Mary was also the Son 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 69 


of God, and they were not likely to leave 
home, wife, children, houses, lands, and suffer 
want and persecution in behalf of one who had 
little else than these experiences to offer, with- 
out satisfying themselves of the proof which 
had been asserted of those bold claims. 

And, then, whatever may have been the lia- 
bility of others to err upon the subject, there 
was no such liability with Jesus. He knew 
very well whether he did what he professed to 
be doing in proof of the Divine authority 
under which he claimed to act. To speak of 
the miracles which Jesus thought he was work- 
ing, as Rénan has done,” is too absurd for 
refutation, and can no more be admitted than 
we can admit that Jesus could have attempted 
fraud in the accomplishment of the Father’s 
work. 

Indeed, the testimony of this last witness 
is decisive of the question. That Jesus did 
testify to the miracles has not been doubted or 
denied. No criticism that we know has at- 
tempted to eliminate from the record the pas- 
sages which set forth this fact, and there is no 


MVife of Jesus, page 232. 


70 MIRACLES 


conceivable way of escaping or annulling the 
proof thus afforded in the case. If Jesus was 
of the character which we have seen has uni- 
versally been ascribed to him—both upright 
and wise beyond all the men the world has 
known—he could not have hazarded his claims 
upon the profession of deeds that were not 
wrought; he could not have mistaken for gen- 
uine miracles mere feats of jugglery or sleight 
of hand, which he had himself performed, and 
much less could Jesus have spoken intentional 
falsehood upon the subject. He who stood in 
the “front rank of the grand family of the true 
sons of God,” and “poured forth a doctrine 
beautiful as the light, sublime as heaven, and 
true as God,” can certainly be admitted as a 
qualified witness to deeds which, he claimed, 
were performed by himself—performed in 
open day, before multitudes of people, in va- 
rious localities, and in behalf of a cause so dear 
that for its accomplishment he voluntarily laid 
down his life. 

We would now compare the evidence for 
these events in Jesus’ life with that upon which 
belief is based in other facts of history; and 


a 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 71 


we are perfectly willing to have the compari- 
son tested by the principle laid down by Pro- 
fessor Huxley, that the question as to what 
Jesus said and did “is capable of solution by 
no other methods than those ordinarily prac- 
ticed by the historian and literary critic.’”"** 

First, let us consider other miracles of 
which we read, those especially which have 
been ascribed to ‘‘the saints’ and others who 
have figured in the history of the Church. 

As to these, our limits forbid that we enter 
into a minute examination even of a single 
one of them; but after careful consideration of 
the subject, we feel prepared to assert the fol- 
lowing propositions: 

1. In by far the greater number of these 
pseudo-miracles a living person as the per- 
former of them is rarely seen. The agent that 
appears as working the miracle is a sacred 
relic—piece of the cross; blood, bones, or 
tomb of a deceased saint; consecrated oil or 
hallowed fountain; and, as Professor Huxley’® 
confesses as to the best accredited miracles 


18 Christianity and Agnosticism, page 16. 
19 Christianity and Agnosticism. 


72 MIRACLES 


recorded by Eginhard, the miracles are all of 
a class in which “malingering is possible or 
hysteria presumable.” 

2. These miracles are either narrated (a) of 
persons absent and out of reach of the wit- 
nesses, so-called, who recorded them, as was 
the case with St. Xavier, who was in the dis- 
tant East when the miracles were ascribed to 
him, and whose letters contain “express dis- 
proof” of the miracles;?° or (b) of persons too 
long dead for eye-witnesses to have borne tes- 
timony to the fact, as with Gregory, whose 
miracles were published a century and a half 
alter his death;*! or (c) of those who during 
their lifetime are well known to have made 
no profesion of miraculous powers, and of 
whom contemporaries made no such claims, 
as is the case with the Virgin Mary. 

3. Such miracles, therefore, are wholly 
without the evidence of witnesses who could 
have known the truth of their assertions. 

4. Not one of these miracles is alleged to 
have been wrought in support of a great cause 


0 Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1889. 
*1Paley’s Works, Vol. III, page 263. 


aS <> aS 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 73 


which appealed to them for confirmation, and 
which was actually founded upon belief in 
them; not one of them drew upon the wit- 
nesses such opposition and persecution as was 
borne by those who testified to the miracles 
and the resurrection of Jesus; and not one of 
them was believed by all classes of men and 
women to whom they were reported, so that 
learned, unlearned, friends, and enemies were 
alike convinced. 

5. Consequently no such miracle is estab- 
lished by evidence which will bear comparison 
with that which we have for the miracles of 
Jesus. 

Let us now see how the case stands with 
well-known marvels in ancient classic history. 

It were folly to consider seriously the com- 
parison which has been often made between 
the accounts of these deeds of Jesus and the 
early Greek and Roman legends. Such stories 
as those of Prometheus, Hercules, Theseus, 
the translation of Romulus, the conferences 
between Numa and Egeria, make no show 
even of a pretense to an historical basis. ‘The 
authors of such works as contain these and 


74 MIRACLES 


other like narrations wrote centuries and tens 
of centuries subsequently to the exploits of 
these mythical heroes, and not only so, but 
they recite these things without attaching the 
least credibility to them. To occupy the read- 
er’s time, therefore, with any further compari- 
son here would be like making a stately argu- 
ment to prove that Julius Cesar was more of 
a veritable historical character than Jack the 
Giant-killer, or that Froude and Freeman are 
more reliable narrators of facts than the au- 
thors of the Arabian Nights or old Baron 
Munchausen. 

We pass on, therefore, to consider the 
proof of the miracles as compared with the 
proofs of what we call authentic history; that 
is, history generally admitted, and as to which, 
in the main, no doubt is entertained. Very 
few of the events, at least of ancient history, 
have been transmitted to us with evidence 
that can bear such investigation as has been 
given to those deeds of Jesus. Whatever may 
have been the materials out of which histori- 
ans have wrought their narratives, those ma- 
terials are, with very few exceptions, inacces- 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 75 
eee 


sible to us to-day, and hence our knowledge 
of ancient history is knowledge, not of events 
themselves, but only of what has been said of 
the events by historians who could not pos- 
sibly have known the certainty of what they 
wrote. Even in the writings of those who, 
like Thucydides and Cesar, have given us 
fragmentary histories of their own times, few 
things are recorded of which the writers had 
any personal knowledge, and even as to these 
there are no contemporary authors to con- 
firm their stories. Asa general thing, we ad- 
mit the accounts of the great “authorities,” 
largely because we have no special interest 
in the matter, and have really no concern 
whether those acounts are true or false. If 
we should subject the leading events of an- 
cient history to such criticism as we demand 
for the miracles of Jesus, where could we find, 
for instance, proof of the battle of Marathon, 
the exploits of Epaminondas and Alexander, 
the wars of Marius and Sulla, or the assassi- 
nation of Julius Cesar? Herodotus, the ear- 
liest authority that we have for “Marathon,” 
wrote about fifty years after the battle, him- 


76 | MIRACLES 


self being but six years of age when the Per- 
sians made their first invasion. It is only 
through works written several centuries after 
their deaths, that the deeds of Alexander and 
Epaminondas are known to the world; and 
as for the assassination of Czsar, what appears 
to be our full knowledge of the event is de- 
rived from men who wrote from one to two 
hundred years after the event occurred. The 
only contemporary information on the sub- 
ject is found in the allusions of Cicero’s let- 
ters and orations, which give us no formal or 
detailed account of the matter, and the ‘‘con- 
tents” of the hundred and sixteenth book of 
Livy, the book itself being now unknown to 
the world. 

Really, all that we can learn of the assassi- 
nation comes to us from Appian, Plutarch, 
and Suetonius, who lived a century and a 
half after it occurred, and Dion Cassius, who 
wrote more than fifty years still later,—all of 
whom, according to Mr. Froude, “relate in- 
cidents as facts which are demonstrably 
false.nc- 


22Tntroduction to his Life of Cesar. 


es 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE vas 


And thus we might go through history 
from the earliest days to a comparatively mod- 
ern period, and with a like result; viz., that, as 
a general thing, the so-called facts of the past 
rest upon evidence which hardly deserves the 
name, as compared with the evidence we have 
for the miracles and the resurrection from the 
dead of Jesus. 

But little better appears the evidence on 
which rests our belief in much that science 
teaches. It were, of course, absurd to inti- 
mate disparagement of the facts from which 
science draws her inferences; that.is, so far 
as these facts have been attested by the senses, 
or by mathematical computation. Such facts, 
however, form a comparatively small portion 
of what passes under the name of science. 
The greater part of science—science as dis- 
tinct from the facts on which she builds—is 
but hypothesis or theory, which, in the very 
nature of things, can not be classed among 
things known or proven. The nebular hy- 
pothesis, the antiquity of the globe, the de- 
scent of man, natural selection, the conserva- 
tion of forces, the atomic theory, the ethereal 


78 MIRACLES 


medium, and other like things, would only 
excite our ridicule were we to call for the wit- 
nesses to testify that they are true. Mr. Dar- 
win himself could not have testified that men 
are but highly-developed orang-outangs, or 
apes. Mr. Wallace could not have testified to 
a single fact of natural selection as the con- 
trolling force in nature; no physicist has seen 
an atom or a molecule, or subjected to the test 
of sense the ethereal medium “which pervades 
all space; and not a geologist that lives can 
bear witness to those long periods of time 
which we have all come to admit as clearly 
proved. The utmost that can be said of be- 
lief in any of these things is that it is logically 
derived from consideration of the facts in- 
volved in each. But this is only saying that 
the belief is founded upon a course of reason- 
ing, which is always attended with at least the 
liability to error. In many cases the reason- 
ing has been conducted through long, labori- 
ous processes, in each of which the mind may 
have been disturbed by one or more of the 
“idols” described by Bacon. ‘The more of 
reasoning the more of liability to error, and 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE 79 
See nS 


the greater the number of reasoners the 
greater the variety of conclusions adopted; 
and hence the history of science is a history 
of conflicting theories, and thus necessarily 
a history of errors mingled with its best es- 
tablished truths. Every teaching in physical 
science, beyond the bare foundation of facts, 
rests upon a basis which may at any time give 
way. Even “ ‘the eternal truths’ of which 
metaphysicians speak have hardly ever lasted 
more than a generation. In our own day 
schools or systems of philosophy have died 
before the founders of them.’”23 

We must now note that while the progress 
of scientific discovery and antiquarian re- 
search have overthrown much of what both 
science and history have taught the world, this 
history on which we found our belief in the 
miracles of Jesus has remained unchanged. 
No theory in science—no record of the past— 
has been more frequently or more critically 
investigated than have been these records of 
the life of Jesus, and yet while almost every 
year weakens our faith in ancient history, and 


Jowett; Plato 2: 25. 


80 MIRACLES 


every generation at least reverses large por- 
tions of what science teaches, nothing has oc- 
curred to change our views of the genuine- 
ness or authenticity of the Gospels, from 
which we derive our evidence that Jesus per- 
formed the great deeds therein recorded. In- 
deed, the true historical character of these 
Gospels is to-day better established than it 
has ever been before, even in the days when 
men still lived who were convinced by those 
who had been eye-witnesses of the facts to 
which they testified. All history grows in 
credibility if it remains uncontradicted while 
honest research is made, and we have, there- 
fore, no hesitation in saying that, amid all the 
discoveries of manuscripts and monuments, 
and all the direct assaults upon the Gospels, 
the testimony of these to “what Jesus actually 
said and did” has been confirmed even by the 
efforts that have been made to prove it false. 

Now, we would not undertake to say that 
the miracles, in consequence of this testi- 
mony, are more easily believed than those 
other things with which they have just been 
compared. Actual belief depends fully as 


CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE SI 


much upon the reader’s attitude toward the 
subject as upon the evidence which may have 
been adduced. There are idiosyncrasies of 
thought and reasoning which may nullify the 
evidence, even on the part of those who have 
determined to be guided by the evidence 
alone. But waiving all prepossessions and 
undue assumptions, and taking the evidence 
as it stands, in its own light and strength, 
nothing is hazarded in saying that if to_the 
unbiased mind the miracles of Jesus are not 
fully proven, it is impossible to prove any 
event of the past; and if the reader does not 
assent to this, it must be because, in his case 
at least, other considerations than the evi- 


dence have formed his judgment. 
6 


CHARTER LM 


Assaults upon the Evidence by Rénan, 
Mill, Huxley, Hume 


HE reader will bear in mind that we have 
been considering the miracles as we 
would have considered any other events of 
the past; that is, without regard to the differ- 
ence that might exist between them and the 
more ordinary facts of history. Considered 
thus, it will be admitted that the miracles of 
Jesus have been established beyond all con- 
tradiction. Yet as miracles are not to be 
classed as ordinary events—as all admit at 
least their extraordinary nature—the evidence 
given is not satisfactory in the eyes of many, 
and we must now attend to the leading ob- 
jections that have been brought against it. 
First, however, we must observe the fact. 
that some have paid little or no attention to 
the evidence, denying the miracles solely upon 


the ground of their supernatural character. 
82 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 83 


To this class of objectors belong Rénan and 
Strauss. Says the former, “Till we have new 
light we shall maintain, therefore, this prin- 
ciple of historical criticism, that supernatural 
relations are not to be accepted as such;”? 
and Strauss ‘knows for certain what Jesus 
was not, and did not do—that is, nothing su- 
pernatural’’?—and hence he starts out with the 
definite determination that “in the person and 
acts of Jesus no supernaturalism shall be suf- 
fered to remain.’ 

We shall not linger here to show that 
speaking of the miracles as supernatural is 
pure assumption. As to the means or agen- 
cies by which the miracles were accomplished, 
we know no more than we know of the cre- 
ation of the world. One thing is certain: our 


limited knowledge of nature prevents our ~ vat 


knowing the line of separation between the 
natural and the supernatural, and for aught 
we know, therefore, the miracles may have 
been as natural as any other events that have 


1Life of Jesus, p. 45. 
2New Life of Jesus, Vol. I, p. 216. 
3 New Life of Jesus, p. 11 of Introduction. 


84 MIRACLES 


occurred throughout the universe or through- 
out all time. Doubtless they were as natural 
to Jesus; and their supernaturalness to us may 
consist only in their being inexplicable or un- 
familiar. 

But waiving this, it requires no very great 
acumen to expose the fallacy of the objections 
now considered. 

At the outset we would ask where Rénan 
obtained that “principle of historical criti- 
cism” expunging the supernatural from his- 
tory. From the earliest days the supernatu- 
ral has been a part of history, and for the sim- 
ple reason that it has figured so largely among 
the beliefs of mankind. Not only the four 
Gospels, the high estimate set upon which by 
Rénan himself we have already seen, but large 
portions of the history, both of the ages pre- 
ceding and of those subsequent to the compo- 
sition of the Gospels, show this belief to have 
been not only one of the most deeply fixed, 
but one of the most widely prevalent known 
to the world. The belief has not been con- 


fined to the ignorant and superstitious; the . 


wisest and best men, by large majority, in all 


7 ae setae Acer. to res 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 85 


times, have entertained it, and Rénan has no 
right, therefore, to set up, by mere assump- 
tion, the principle that “supernatural rela- 
_ tions” are necessarily false. The true prin- 
ciple applies here that rules in all other rela- 
tions; namely, that each instance of the 
alleged supernatural is to be judged by the 
evidence in the particular case considered. 
Had supernatural relations been classed by 
mankind in general, or even by the learned 
alone, along with things per se incredible or 
impossible—as, for instance, that of a body 
being, and at the same time not being, or of 
a body existing in two different places at the 
same time—Rénan’s principle of criticism had 
been quite valid; but as things now are, while 
the great masses of mankind, in all ages and 
of all grades of enlightenment, have included 
the supernatural equally with the natural in 
their beliefs, no one man or class of men can 
presume, by a mere ipse dixit, to reject all 
accounts of the supernatural as incredible or 
false. The “new light,” therefore, which the 
French savant should have looked for is that 
which shall disprove supernatural facts as such, 


86 MIRACLES 
ee 


Not until the non-existence of a supernatural 
realm can be proven, can the “relations” of 
supernatural things be arbitrarily rejected. If 
there is a supernatural realm—a realm of 
things not seen by the eye or cognized by the 
other senses—there surely can be nothing un- 
reasonable in the belief of the existence of such 
things; nothing unreasonable, therefore, in 
admitting well-accredited evidence of their ex- 
istence at any particular place or time. That 
there are supernatural things Rénan himself 
by no means denies, at least not in his Life of 
Jesus. The dedication of his work to a de- 
ceased sister shows most plainly, unless he 
thus means to insult the memory of one dear 
to his heart, his confident belief in this class 
of things. He also believes—at least so 
teaches his Life of Jesus—in the being of a 
God, and not a word here intimates that this 
belief of his differs from that generally enter- 
tained of the Supreme Ruler of the universe. 
Admitting thus the immortality of the soul 
and the Divine Existence, he can not, does 
not, deny the supernatural as such, and for 
him to announce, therefore, in oracular style, 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 87 


the falsehood of everything that may be said 
of the supernatural world, is not only inex- 
cusable inconsistency with his own belief, but 
is an assumption of the most daring and pre- 
sumptuous kind. 

We repeat, therefore, that supernatural re- 
lations are to be investigated, each by its own 
evidences, and not contemptuously tossed 
aside as if in themselves unworthy of atten- 
tion. 

Mr. Mill’s objection to the supernatural is 


that it can not be known to us “as such,” be- 
cause it can not be discerned by the senses. 
“Tf we had,” says he, “the direct testimony of 
our senses to a supernatural fact, it might be 
as completely authenticated and made certain 
as any natural one. But we never have. The 
supernatural character of the fact is . . . 
always matter of inference and speculation.”* 

Without the least hesitation or reserve, we 
may admit every word here written. The su- 
pernatural character of the fact is, and in the 
necessity of things must be, matter of infer- 
ence and speculation; but inference and specu- 


4Three Essays in Religion, p. 234. 


88 MIRACLES 
eee een nn te ee 


lation are neither necessarily false nor neces- 
sarily untrustworthy. The larger part of what 
we know, or at least regard ourselves as know- 
ing, is only matter of inference, and much of 
it at one time was matter of bare speculation. 
Speculation has started many a current of 
thought which has ended in inference, which 
the world has accepted as established truth. 
What we call gravitation was in this way dis- 
covered. Both this and all other forces in na- 
ture are known to us only by inference. No 
one has ever tested by the senses the forces 
of cohesion, affinity, molecular attraction. All 
that we know of such forces is the phenomena 
that we ascribe to their operations. It mat- 
ters not what we call the force or power to 
which we ascribe any phenomenon, or class 
of phenomena, and it matters nothing how 
much or how little we know of the laws by 
which it acts in nature; as to the power itself 
we have no doubt, but the power can be 
known or believed in by inference alone. 

And we do not hesitate, by inference, to 
discriminate between two or more kinds of 
forces, We say that gravitation is the cause 


Le a ee 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 89 


of one class of phenomena, while electricity, 
magnetism, chemical affinity, are causes of 
other phenomena. We make this discrimina- 
tion because of our inability to understand 
how phenomena so diverse can be produced 
by one and the same natural force. Certainly 
if the leper was cleansed, and the dead raised 
by, so far as one could see, the mere speaking 
of a word, there was a power exerted as dif- 
ferent from each of the forces just named, as 
either of these is different from the others; 
and this new power evidently belongs to a 
class of things which can not be identified 
with any of the forces of which science treats. 
It can not here be replied that all forces are 
now considered as but modifications of one 
original force, for the fact that these modifi- 
cations are still distinctly named and de- 
scribed, and that science has never yet been 
able to assert that they are interchangeable 
with each other as to their operations in na- 
ture, so that, for instance, the phenomena of 
gravitation may be produced by magnetism, 
or magnetism may accomplish what we as- 
cribe to chemical affinity; the fact that these 


90 MIRACLES 


distinctions are still observed shows the es- 
sential difference in the forces under consider- 
ation. Should it be urged that these several 
forces all proceed from one and the same orig- 
inal force, the objection only confirms our 
reasoning, for we here come to a new force 
or power lying entirely beyond our knowledge 
of nature. 

This new power must be either supernatu- 
ral, therefore, or a very remote unknown 
natural power; and it can make no difference 
as regards the argument whether this remote 
unknown power is called natural or super- 
natural; it is known to us by inference just as 
logical and scientific as the so-called natural 
powers are. What we need that we may infer 
and believe in the power that performed the 
miracles, is just what we need before we can 
infer the existence of any other more familiar 
natural power; namely, the phenomena in any 
given case; and whether it is our own or 
others’ senses that witness these phenomena, 
we believe in their existence, and infer the 
powers by which they are produced when sat- 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE gI 


isfactory evidence is presented that the phe- 
nomena exist, or have existed. 

This brings us to consider another portion 
of Mr. Mill’s objection to the miracles; which 
is that the evidence “‘is not the evidence of 
our senses, but of witnesses, and even this not 
at first hand, but resting on the attestation 
of books and traditions.’ | 

True, it is not the evidence of our own 
senses that we have, but Mr. Mill does not 
deny that we have the evidence of the senses 
of the witnesses; and just before penning the 
above he had, in terms most unmistakable 
and emphatic, declared the validity of this 
kind of evidence. “It is evidently impossible,” 
says he, “to maintain that if a supernatural 
fact really occurs, proof of its occurrence can 
not be accessible to the human faculties. The 
evidence of our senses can prove this, as it can 
prove other things,’ 

The reader must here bear in mind that 
this objection of Mr. Mill is not that the evi- 


°Three Essays in Religion, p. 219. 
°Three Essays in Religion, p. 217. 


92 MIRACLES 


dence is false or insufficient, but that it is not 
the evidence of our senses, only the “‘attesta- 
tions of books and traditions.” 

The objection is wholly futile unless it can 
be shown either that all books and traditions 
are unreliable, or that these particular books 
recording the miracles are thus to be re- 
garded. Besides, it were an ample reply to 
say that the objection, if applied to miracles, 
might equally be applied to all other events 
which we have never seen. In taking what 
was evidence to those disciples and the multi- 
tudes as evidence to ourselves, we are only 
pursuing the method by which all other events 
of the past have been determined. ‘There is 
no other method to be pursued. There is no 
experimental or scientific test that can be pro- 
vided; mathematical rules or formulz can here 
find no place; abstract reasonings are of no 
avail; the senses, our own senses, can make 
investigation only of such facts as come under 
our own observation, and to demand, there- 
fore, the evidence of these for the miracles of 
Jesus is to attempt the establishment of a prin- 
ciple which would overthrow all history and 


SS. 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 93 


many of the best authenticated facts of sci- 
ence. How would the “historian or the lit- 
erary critic’ deal with the narratives of events 
as to which he might have cause for doubt, 
and how, in like case, would the scientist pro- 
ceed? Neither of these would reject the testi- 
mony of others merely because they tell of 
things that have lain beyond the range of his 
own observations. Mr. Wallace, we believe, 
once said that if a new fact in science is an- 
nounced, one’s brother scientists accept it 
with the faith which a devout Romanist enter- 
tains toward the dictum of his priest or pope; 
and this is the way the world at large, both of 
the learned and unlearned, treats testimony 
as to things not seen. ‘Thus the ordinary 
transactions of life are conducted, and the far- 
thest advance of critical thought will never 
reach the point at which evidence ample, ade- 
quate, and unimpeachable shall be rejected, 
because it can not be subjected to the scrutiny 
of our own senses. Our confidence in the tes- 
timony of other persons’ senses is as absolute 
as in the testimony of our own, provided we 
believe that others have seen as they declare 


94 MIRACLES 
SP AC se SE SS ARUSHA Se RU lS 


they have. When we believe in the veracity 
of a witness to a case in court, even when life 
and death are pending, we admit his testimony 
without the least misgiving, and it never oc- 
curs to us to doubt, because we ourselves have 
not beheld the facts in question. 

Those contemporary witnesses believed the 
miracles, because with their own eyes they be- 
held what Jesus did, and there can be no doubt 
that had we to-day the evidence which con- 
vinced them of the miracles, we should now 
believe no less than they believed. No new 
facts have been developed to diminish or de- 
stroy the power of the evidence; the human 
mind has undergone no change; the advance 
in science has rendered us none the less quali- 
fied to use our eyes aright—none the less dis- 
posed to believe what our eyes have seen. 
Just as an event testified to by witnesses to- 
day—testified in a way that leaves no room 
for doubt, and the testimony remaining un- 
impaired or uncontradicted—would be equally 
credible two thousand years in the future ; so 
with an event that was properly attested two 


eS ee ee 


er et eg 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 95 


thousand years ago. The miracles can form 
no exception to this statement. The miracu- 
lous or, if one please, the supernatural char- 
acter of the miracles may justify the demand 
for an extraordinary amount or quality of the 
evidence; but lapse of time can not affect the 
evidence already given, neither can the na- 
ture of the miracles be taken in proof that the 
evidence was not given, or that the evidence, 
when given, was not valid. 

The only reason we can have for doubting 
the testimony in the case before us is the 
strange, inexplicable character of the facts 
concerned. But strange, inexplicable things 
have always been seen as easily as more fa- 
miliar things, and when a number of men 
assert that such things have been seen by 
them, we violate common sense if we reject 
their statements, unless we have reason, out 
of and beyond the things themselves, either to 
charge the witnesses with falsehood in the 
premises, or with having eyes or minds in- 
capable of performing their normal functions. 

Professor Huxley offers an indirect objec- 


96 MIRACLES 


SORES WALL ales. adam dt wld teen OE PN 
tion to the evidence in the following spirited 
style: 

“Neither considerable intellectual ability, 
nor undoubted honesty, nor knowledge of the 
world, nor proved faithfulness of historians, 
nor profound piety on the part of eye-wit- 
nesses and contemporaries affords any guar- 
antee of the objective truth of their state- 
ments when we know that a firm belief in the 
miraculous was ingrained in their minds, and 
was the presupposition of their observations 
and reasonings.’”7 

Whatever be its logical value, a more em- 
phatic statement has not been made in all the 
literature opposed to miracles. But let us 
make a brief analysis of it, and see what it 
amounts to in the way of accomplishing the 
purpose for which it was designed. Neither 
intellect, honesty, piety, knowledge of the 
world, nor even acknowledged historical fidel- 
ity can prove a miracle “when we know that 
a firm belief in the miraculous was ingrained 
in the minds of the witnesses, and was the pre- 


supposition of their observations and reason- 
reso tt DO Pe Re] AG 8 Pinan) IN 


"Christianity and Agnosticism, p. 210. 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 97 


ings.” Now, if all this be true, it must be so 
from the constitution of the human mind, and 
not because of the particular subject to which, 
in this case, the mind has been directed. 
Professor Huxley would hardly presume, 
upon his own authority, to single out from all 
the varied subjects upon which the mind may 
be employed this one subject of the miracles, 
and say that it alone so warps and distorts the 
judgment that even such testimony as he has 
described can not be decisive of the question. 
If the professor does mean this, his propo- 
sition, instead of being an argument in the 
case, is only a skillfully-concealed assumption 
of the conclusion to be established, and 
amounts to nothing more than a bare denial 
of the miracles. And so, if he means that all 
those excellences of intellectual and moral 
character can not qualify for trustworthy tes- 
timony in the case, and yet does not mean to 
assume the point at issue, he virtually makes 
the all-sweeping declaration that no man’s tes- 
timony can avail on any subject, if his mind 
has been previously ingrained with presuppo- 


sitions or belief. Now, if presupposition or 
7 


98 MIRACLES 
SAS GU aOR SIE Ea Ly 8 


belief can render nugatory argument and tes- 
timony in favor of the miracles, it must have 
the like effect upon all reasonings against the 
miracles. Belief and disbelief are but one and 
the same state or action of the mind, accord- 
ing to the view or point of observation of the 
reasoner. Professor Huxley thus becomes 
entangled in the meshes of his own net. He 
can not make an argument against the mir- 
acles that unbiased reason can admit, nor can 
he testify as to matters of scientific fact upon 
the subject. If his recent discussion in 
“Christianity and Agnosticism” fairly repre- 
sents the professor’s mind, no man has been 
more deeply ingrained with disbelief; that is, 
with belief that no miracle has ever been ac- 
complished, and this belief is evidently the pre- 
supposition of all he says upon the subject. 

The same incapacitation for giving evi- 
dence, or making argument, may be asserted 
more or less of every man who has written 
either upon this or any other subject in which 
the laws of nature are involved. 

The mind has been ingrained with belief 
in the universality and immutability of these 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 99 


laws. Upon this presupposition all our rea- 
sonings have been founded. Take away this 
presupposition or belief, and the fabric of 
modern science falls to the ground. “Neither 
considerable intellectual ability, nor un- 
doubted honesty, nor knowledge of the world, 
nor proved faithfulness of historians, nor pro- 
found piety on the part of eye-witnesses and 
contemporaries” can prove a fact or principle 
in science “when we know that a firm belief’ 
in the invariability of natural law has been 
“ingrained in the minds” of scientists, and has 
been the “presupposition of their observations 
and reasonings.” 

Mr. Hume® must now be heard upon the 
subject: 

‘There is not to be found in all history any 
miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, 
of such unquestioned good sense, education, 
and learning, as to secure us against all de- 
lusion in themselves; of such undoubted in- 
tegrity as to place them beyond all suspicion 
of any design to deceive others; of such credit 
and reputation in the eyes of all mankind, as 


8 Hssays,Vol. II, , p. 122. 


I0O MIRACLES 
RLS sta OS AN A BULAN, BAR AHL MO aC ALL call eld 


to have a great deal to lose in case of their 
being detected in any falsehood, and at the 
same time attesting facts performed in such a 
public manner and in so celebrated a part of 
the world as to render the detection unavoid- 
able.” 

Let us now compare the different portions 
of this formidable statement with the facts al- 
ready given—facts as to which there can be 
no denial: 

“Attesting facts performed in such a public 
manner, and in so celebrated a part of the 
world as to render the detection unavoid- 
able.” 

_ The miracles were wrought in one of the 
most important and enlightened provinces of 
the Roman Empire, then at the zenith of her 
glory, and if, in the presence of the vast mis- 
cellaneous multitudes that followed Jesus, 
they were not performed with such publicity 
as to render detection unavoidable, then such 
publicity can not be reckoned among things 
possible to man. 

“Of such credit and reputation in the eyes 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE IOI 


Pan LEER a a a aaaS 


of all mankind as to have a great deal to lose 
in case of their being detected in any false- 
hood.” 

Whatever may, or may not, have been their 
reputation, the witnesses knew very well what 
they had to lose. Loss of goods, persecution, 
imprisonment, death oftentimes in its most 
cruel forms awaited them, whether they were 
detected in any falsehood or were seen to tell 
only the undeniable truth. Experiences such 
as these are terrors to the lowliest and most 
obscure equally with those of highest name, 
and in such a case it is folly to argue about 
distinctions as to the credit or reputation of 
the witnesses. 

“Of such undoubted integrity as to place 
them beyond all suspicion of any design to de- 
ceive others.” 

Were Mr. Hume now living, he would see 
that the disposition to charge the witnesses 
of Jesus’ miracles with intentional deception 
has long since passed away; and that the prob- 
lem now is, not to prove the honesty of the 
witnesses, but, according this in the fullest 


102 MIRACLES 
LLL ene 


degree, to account for the testimony under 
consideration, if the fact of the miracles is to 
be denied. 

As to the “sufficient number” of men of 
“unquestioned good sense, education, and 
learning, to secure us against all delusion in 
themselves,” we would only remark that in the 
evangelists, disciples, general mutitudes, 
scribes and Pharisees of the Council, we have 
a number of witnesses such as can not be pro- 
duced for any other event in ancient history— 
such a number that any one who can imagine 
or believe that they were all under a delusion 
must himself be under the power of a delusion 
no less potent, and as for “the good sense, 
education, and learning,” these, considering 
the publicity of the miracles, and the fact that 
they were all addressed to the senses of the 
witnesses, were no more necessary to their 
qualification as testifiers in the case, than had 
they testified to the healing of the sick or 
other ordinary events, as to which no miracu- 
lous character is pretended. It required no 
extraordinarily “good sense,” extraordinary 
“learning,” or education for the blind man’s 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDKNCE 103 


hw ee ee 
parents to know whether the man in John ix? 
had been born blind, or for the man himself 
to know whether he had been made to see; 
and certainly he could know who it was that 
had given him the power to see. The Phari- 
sees, who tried every means of disproving the 
miracle, were compelled to admit the fact; and 
they were so far convinced of what they were 
informed as to the resurrection of Lazarus 
from the tomb that not only this, but “many 
miracles” they declared Jesus had _per- 
formed.?° 


All that was necessary to determine Bait 


whether or not Jesus had wrought the mighty 
works recorded of him was for the witnesses 
to have had ordinarily good eyes and ordi- 
narily good common sense; they must only 
have been not blind, not idiotic, or insane. 
But let us see the objection of Mr. Hume 
based upon the supposed antagonism between 
the miracles and the laws of nature. This ar- 
gument has lost none of its power or popu- 
larity during the century and a half that has 
elapsed since its publication to the world. Mr. 


9John ix, 16-18. 10John xi, 47. 


104 MIRACLES 
pr gt TE RN 


Mill calls it “an argument which goes down 
to the depth of the subject,’!! and Strauss 
considers that it “carries with it such convic- 
tion that the question may be regarded as 
having been by it virtually settled.”!2 

“When the fact attested,” says Mr. Hume, 
“is such a one as has seldom fallen under our 
observation, there is a contest of two opposite 
experiences, of which the one destroys the 
other as far as it goes, and the superior can 
only operate on the mind by the force which 
remains. ‘The very same principle of experi- 
ence which gives us a certain degree of assur- 
ance in the testimony of witnesses, gives us 
also in this case another degree of assurance 
against the fact which they endeavor to estab- 
lish: from which contradiction there neces- 
sarily arises a counterpoise and mutual de- 
struction of belief and authority.’’1® 

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of na- 
ture; and as a firm and unalterable experience 
has established these laws, the proof against 


Ee heir te SS ope ery btn 500 OE RSMO ie 
Three Essays in Religion, p. 217. 
12 New Life of Jesus, Vol. I, p. 199. 
Essays, Vol. II, p. 119. 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE I05 


a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is 
as entire as any argument from experience can 
possibly be imagined.’’'* 

“No testimony is sufficient to establish a 
miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind 
that its falsehood would be more miraculous 
than the fact which it endeavors to establish; 
and even in that case there is a mutual de- 
struction of arguments, and the superior only 
gives us an assurance suitable to that degree 
of force which remains after deducting the 
inferior. When any one tells me that he saw 
a dead man restored to life, I immediately con- 
sider with myself whether it be more probable 
that this person should either deceive or be 
deceived, or that the fact which he relates 
should really have happened.”?° 

It must be noted, before we proceed fur- 
ther, that in the paragraph last quoted Mr. 
Hume has used the word miraculous in a modi- 
fied sense, a sense wholly different from that 
demanded by the argument. The opposite of 


14 Essays, Vol. II, p. 120. 
1b Essays, Vol. II, p. 121; see also Strauss’s New Life, 
Vol. I, p. 199. 


106 MIRACLES 


probable—that is, improbable—is the meaning 
now given to the term. “When any one tells 
me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I 
immediately consider with myself whether it 
would be more probable that this person should 
either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact 
which he relates should really have happened.” 

It would not be fair to hold the writer re- 
sponsible for what may have been a mere care- 
less use of language, and demand that improb- 
able shall be the sense in which he uses the 
word miraculous in the former portion of his 
argument, and yet we must not fail to call 
attention to the fact that he has here virtually 
abandoned his position altogether. That a per- 
son telling of a dead man’s being restored to 
life should either deceive or be deceived is, 
indeed, far more probable than that the fact 
should really have occurred. One might rea- 
sonably be called demented who should be- 
lieve in a resurrection from the dead on the 
statement of a single person, however up- 
right, sensible, or learned he may be regarded. 
In such a case delusion or deception of some 
kind would certainly be believed; but the res- 


—S ee ee ee ee 


eo Cre 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 107 


urrection of Jesus is a far different thing, and 
so of the other miracles. The testimony for 
these is so abundant—the testimony of large 
numbers of witnesses of different classes, 
friends and enemies, in different places, at dif- 
ferent times—that it can not be, and has not 
been, assailed, otherwise than by bold denial 
without the proof, or by assumptions and hy- 
potheses that may either explain away the 
miracles, or close the mind to the power of 
evidence that can not be refuted. 

Pure assumption is the ground upon which 
Mr. Hume has based his definition; namely, 
that a miracle is a violation of the laws of na- 
ture. For this there is no warrant, either in 
the teachings of natural science or in the dec- 
larations of the Word of God. That a miracle 
is a violation of the world’s general knowledge 
or experience of the laws of nature, no one 
will undertake to deny; but this only places 
miracles, as regards this definition of them, 
upon the same foundation with all new dis- 
coveries, even of these laws themselves; and 
for one to make a distinction here by declaring 
that such discoveries, once understood, are 


108 MIRACLES 
i ee 


seen to be in harmony with all laws previously 
known, is only saying that we know more of 
these discoveries than we know of the way in 
which Jesus wrought his miracles. One can 
not reasonably say that a miracle is a viola- 
tion of the laws of nature, unless he knows all 
the laws of nature; knows them in all possible 
combinations or relationships; knows how 
they have operated in all the past, how they 
may be made to operate in all coming time 
and throughout all space; knows them as he 
knows no other subject, however trivial or 
familiar. 

But saying nothing now as to what is or 
what is not the nature of a miracle, there are 
two fundamental errors in this reasoning of 
the great English skeptic. In the first place, 
he speaks as if we made experience the stan- 
dard or basis of our beliefs, an assumption 
easily seen to be, at variance with experience 
itself, and the uses which we make of it in the 
enlargement of our knowledge. Our experi- 
ence is that there are comparatively but few 
things out of the large number of things be- 
lieved, as to which experience is the ground 


ee 


a ee ee fe ea 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE 10g 


on which our beliefs are formed. Only the 
very ignorant accept or reject a statement 
according to its conformity or non-conform- 
ity with experience—experience in the sense 
in which Mr. Hume employs the term. As 
science advances, and men become enlight- 
ened, other sources of conviction come into 
prominence, and experience is but little re- 
garded where there is evidence of a different 
kind satisfactory to the understanding. Not 
only without, but directly contrary to, experi- 
ence, we accept much of what modern science 
teaches. The molecular structure of bodies— 
each molecule so small that, counting at the 
rate of ten million per second, two hundred 
and fifty thousand years would be required to 
count the molecules of a single pin-head’®— 
the ethereal medium, “impalpable, imponder- 
able, yet infinitely more compact than the 
most solid substances, which can be felt or 
weighed, . . . pervading the substances 
of all bodies with little or no resistance as 
freely as the air moves through a grove of 
trees,”—these and other like teachings of sci- 


16 Gage’s Physics, p. 7. 


IIo MIRACLES 


er 


ence are now universally accepted, yet they 
are not only not in accord with our experi- 
ence, but to our experience they are abso- 
lutely and irreconcilably opposed. 

Mr. Hume’s second error lies in his idea of 
“two opposite experiences”—our experience 
as to the testimony of witnesses, and our ex- 
perience against the miracles. He speaks as 
if we really had a number of witnesses to a 
case in court, some of whom are testifying to, 
others against, the miracles, and we must de- 
cide by subtracting our confidence in the 
veracity of the one set of witnesses from our 
confidence in the veracity of the other set. 
But where are these two sets of witnesses? 
We have the witnesses who testify that the 
miracles were performed; where are the op- 
posing witnesses? “One is enough,” says 
Mr. Hume: “Experience is the opposing wit- 
ness.” Experience? ‘There is no experience 
except that of some particular person or per- 
sons, who have acquaintance with a matter 
derived from personal observation, or knowl- 
edge gained by what one sees, hears, tastes, 
feels for himself, or is otherwise conscious of. 


ASSAULTS UPON THE EVIDENCE Irt 


Where, then, is the experience against the 
miracles? Who knows, who has seen, heard, 
or otherwise learned for himself, that the blind 
were not made to see by Jesus, the lame to 
walk, or the dead to rise? ‘There were those 
in the days of Jesus who testified, from their 
own experience, that these things were accom- 
plished; but no experience to the contrary has 
been recorded. 

Our experience to-day may be against our 
having witnessed those deeds of Jesus; but 
neither we, nor Mr. Hume, nor any one else 
of whom the world has heard, has had experi- 
ence contrary to what Jesus is reported to have 
done. Mr. Hume, accordingly, does not 
speak of the miracles of Jesus; not once in the 
course of his entire essay has he applied his 
argument to these; he speaks of experience in 
general and of miracles in general—abstract 
experience against abstract miracles. Against 
miracles in general, if the phrase can have a 
meaning, the world in general may have had 
experience from the creation to the present 
day; but this amounts to nothing in the argu- 
ment, unless it can be shown that there has 


Li 24 MIRACLES 
SNe MAAN LCG RMN a Rl CNSARMTE NNT LIA nea ce ula Nile al 


been particular evidence against these par- 
ticular miracles; in other words, that there 
were contemporary with Jesus those who saw 
and testified that the loaves and fishes were 
not multiplied, that the widow’s son, and 
Martha’s brother, and Jesus himself were not 
taised from the dead. The experience of men 
to-day, in Europe or America, or anywhere 
else than at the places and times recorded of 
Jesus, can not be contrary to what Jesus is 
reported to have done. 

Let it be borne in mind, therefore, that 
whatever be the weakness or the strength of 
the testimony to the miracles of Jesus, we have 
no testimony, and the world has none, against 
these miracles; and by Mr. Hume’s own show- 
ing, if we make the subtraction called for “be- 
tween the two opposite experiences,” the re- 
mainder, large or small, is wholly in our favor. 


ee 


CHAPTER IV 


Alleged Inherent Incredibility of 


Miracles 


FE have seen that objections are made, 

not only to the evidence, but to the 
essential nature of the miracles. Somewhat 
more in detail must these latter objections 
now be considered. 

Biichner says that “we should only waste 
words in our endeavor to prove the natural 
impossibility of a miracle,’ for “the laws ac- 
cording to which nature actSh vs fl) ame 
matter moves . . . are eternal and un- 
alterable.’”* 

J. S. Mill would have it that “a miracle de- 
clares itself to be a supercession, not of one 
natural law by another, but of the law which 
includes all others, which experience proves 
to be universal for all phenomena’”’—which is 


1¥orce and Matter, p. 36. Ibid. p. 33. 
3Three Essays in Religion, p. 122. 
8 113 


114 MIRACLES 


only a more cumbersome way of saying what 
Mr. Hume has said so clearly—that “a mir- 
acle is a violation of the laws of nature, and 
as a firm and unalterable experience has es- 
tablished these laws, the proof against a mir- 
acle is as entire as any argument from 
experience can possibly be imagined.” 

Such assertions, it is easy to see, are all but 
modifications of the two propositions: 

1. That a miracle is a violation of the laws 
of nature; and 

2. That such a violation is an impossibility. . 

In other words, the absolute impossibility 
and incredibility of the miracles is assumed. 
By absolute impossibility we mean impossibility 
regardless of any power that may be supposed 
in the performer of the miracles; by absolute 
incredibility we mean incredibility regardless 
of all evidence of whatsoever degree or kind— 
that the miracles are incredible in their very 
nature, incredible because impossible, and im- 
possible because inconsistent with the general 
order of the universe. 

Now, to say that a miracle is a violation 
of the laws of nature is a vague, indefinite 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES II5 


form of speech, which, though apparently very 
profound and forcible, is easily seen to be ex- 
ceedingly superficial, and to have little or no 
weight in the determination of the question. 
The assertion either means that a miracle is 
a violation of all the laws of nature, or of only 
a portion of these laws; or it must mean that 
each miracle is a violation of some one par- 
ticular law with whose operation it is incon- 
sistent. If the assertion means all the laws 
of nature without exception, it is an assump- 
tion too absurd to need other refutation than 
the mere statement of it, for no man has ever 
pretended to a knowledge of all these laws; / 
if it means only a portion of these laws, it 
leaves the matter wholly undetermined and 
indeterminable, for it specifies not which of 
the laws are to be considered in the question. 
If it means some one particular law with 
whose operations miracles can not be harmon- 
ized, as, for instance, that Jesus’ walking upon 
the water was a violation of the law of gravi- 
tation, the objector himself is presupposing 
the violation of a law of nature—a law which, 
as Mr. Mill would say, “includes all others, 


116 MIRACLES 


which experience shows to be universal for all 
phenomena; namely, that no law of nature acts 
independently and apart from all other laws.4 
We know of no law of nature which has its 
own independent action. Even the falling of 
a stone involves a number of laws operating 
in unison toward a common result; and the 
same, so far as we can ascertain, may be said 
of every other event, great or small, that oc- 
curs throughout the universe. If there is a 
law of nature, detached, separate, sole sov- 
ereign of a realm of its own, acted upon 
neither by other laws nor by any other ex- 
ternal force, such a law is unchangeable in its 
very nature. In the action of such a separate, 
independent law we can no more conceive of 
change than we can conceive the contradic- 
tions of a self-evident truth. That a law can 

J, hot change, violate, or stispend its Own ac- 

Due e ri att. however, is no more cause for believing 
it to be unchangeable by a force or power 
from without, than that a man can not, by the 
straps of his boots, lift himself into the air is 
proof that no other power can lift him up. 

*The Duke of Argyll’s Reign of Law, p. 76. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES i 


Allowing even that for all the time men 
have been observing nature their observation 
has been uniformly that of invariable “law” 
and “order,” both the period and the sphere 
of observation have been too limited to justify 
conclusions as to that which is universal and 
eternal. ‘To assert, therefore, either that a 
miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, or 
that these laws can not be violated, or other- 
wise so controlled as to produce or allow the 
miracles said to have been performed by Jesus, 
is an instance of universal conclusion from 
particular premises at variance equally with 
the principles of sound logic and the humility 
of true science. It presupposes either a 
knowledge of nature and her laws possessed 
only by Him who called nature into being, or 
the knowledge that there is no God, or if there 
is a God, he wields, or can wield, no other 
sovereignty over the works of his hands than 
such as we ourselves behold or can compre- 
hend. 

It is manifest, indeed, that our belief or 
disbelief of miracles is dependent almost 
wholly upon the quality of our belief in God. 


118 MIRACLES 


If there is no such being as a God distinct 
from the universe, and personal, the Creator 
and Sovereign of nature, or if God himself is 
the universe, or a mere law of the same acting 
from an irresistible necessity, there may be 
good reason for discarding miracles with the 
supercilious disdain displayed by Buchner and 
his school. The reader, however, is assumed 
‘to have an entirely different faith He be- 
lieves with the old Roman, Deorum moder- 


amine cuncta geri,—All things are subject to 
_ Divine control; or with the more ancient He- 
brew, that the “Lord hath prepared his throne 
in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth 
over all.” He believes with the Duke of 
Argyll, that “Science is already getting hold 
of the idea that all kinds of force are but forms 
or manifestations of some one central force 
issuing from one Fountain-head of power,” 
and that this power is God’s. He appreciates 
the beautiful—beautiful, because to him 
true—language of Professor Fiske, that “the 
infinite and eternal Power that is manifest in 
every pulsation of the universe is none other 
than the living God;” that “the everlasting 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 11g 


Pie nn aueren te 
source of phenomena is none other than the 
infinite ‘Power that makes for righteous- 
MESS .giie 

With our reader, therefore, God’s connec- 
tion with the order of events, or course of na- 
ture, is not necessary and mechanical, but vol- 
untary and intelligent. God is in nature, but 
he is, at the same time, above and superior to 
nature. He rules in nature, and he rules by 
general laws; but it is he that rules, and not 
the laws. He rules the laws, rules them by a 
law that is above all other laws; that is, by the 
exercise of an intelligent will. He rules in 
uniform invariable consistency with this will; 
but this will itself is that of infinite intelli- 
gence, of unlimited freedom, and of infinite 
superiority to the laws by which he rules, and 
which he himself ordained. 

Miracles, therefore, are not to be judged— 
accepted or rejected—by comparison with any 
fixed, unchangeable order in the processes of 
the physical universe. If matter compre- 
hended within itself all beings and all powers, 
this way of dealing with the subject might do 


120 MIRACLES 
See ee a a pangs one 


very well; but allowing that there is an Author 
of nature, the source of nature’s powers and 
phenomena, we have an entirely different 
norm by which to judge of facts, or reported 
facts, in the physical world. Such facts as 
harmonize not with the order of nature may 
harmonize perfectly with the character and 
will of the Author of nature. Facts which are 
not possible to natural law in its own inde- 
pendent action are possible to law under the 
guidance of an all-wise, all-powerful God. 
For such facts satisfactory reasons may be 
assigned, and if, in addition to the reasonable- 
ness of the facts, sufficient valid evidence be 
adduced, these facts must be admitted like all] 
other facts, whatever be our theory as to the 
way in which they were accomplished. 
Taking this view of the subject, miracles 
are not only consistent with the power, wis- 
dom, and will of God, or of one specially com- 
missioned and endowed of God; they are no 
less consistent with the principles which con- 
trol our reasonings and beliefs. It is only the 


Pee novelty or rarity of miracles which creates the 


thought that they necessarily imply that at 


INCREDIBILITY (OF MIRACLES I2I 


which belief must stagger. There is nothing A f 


in the idea of miracles which does violence to 
the laws of thought, or contradicts the funda- 
mental perceptions of the mind. Whatever 
does thus contradict we can not, of course, 
admit; all the testimony in the world could 
not convince us that, in the same sense, Jesus 
caused the lame man to walk and at the same 
time not to walk; that he multiplied the five 
loaves, and yet only the five original loaves 
remained; that he subtracted two from three, 
and got a remainder of twenty thousand; that 
he passed from one place to another without 
going through the intervening space. ‘hese 
things violate the very foundations of belief; 
they shock our reason. These things we can 
no more believe than we can believe that 
black is white, or white black, or anything else 
that is self-contradictory or absurd. It is 
plain, however, that miracles do not belong to 


this class of things. There is, per se, no more 


violence to reason—provided we assume ade- 
quate power—in believing that a man was 
raised from the grave than in believing that 
he was lifted from the ground or from his bed; 


a 


122 MIRACLES 


Sean EEE! 


no more innate incredibility in the healing of 
the sick, or blasting of the fig-tree, or walking 
upon the water, by the instantaneous exercise 
of a power invisible to us, than in the doing of 
these things by instrumentalities operating 
through periods of time, and manifest to our 
sense of sight or touch. Neither the instan- 
taneous performance of an action renders it 
any the less, nor the slow, laborious perform- 
ance of it any the more, comprehensible to our 
minds; just as the frequency of an event makes 
us comprehend it none the more, and the 
rarity of it none theless. There is really noth- 
ing that we comprehend in the sense of under- 
standing either its real nature, or the way in 
which it has been produced. What we call 
knowing or comprehending is only the classi- 
fying, bundling together, as it were, and nam- 
ing of things—telling what other things these 
first things are like—and our belief of things 
has no connection in the world with our un- 
derstanding of them. Eivery day, hour, mo- 
ment we believe things which no man has 
understood. We believe them because we see, 
touch, taste, hear, or have other evidence 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 123 


which compels belief. This evidence may be 
that of our senses, or it may be the records of 
history, or a process of mathematical demon- 
stration, according to the subject under con- 
sideration; but in no case is belief conditioned 
upon our understanding of the thing in ques- 
tion; that is, our understanding how the thing 
came about, or how it stands related to other 
things that may have been well-known or fa- 
miliar to us. The walking of Jesus upon the 
water, sustained by the approved testimony of 
those who had opportunity of knowing 
whether or not this was done, comes within 
the range of things credible just as really, 
though not so easily, as his walking upon the 
land or upon the vessel’s deck; and the only 
reason why we believe the one act more easily 
than the other, is not that we understand any 
the better how it is accomplished; we believe 
the more easily merely because the walking 
on the land or the deck is an act with which 
we have been familiar, and which can easily be 
classed with other acts which we say we under- 
stand. Familiar or unfamiliar, all that is log- 
ically essential to belief in miracles is adequate 


124 MIRACLES 


evidence in the case, and the miracles become 
actually credible just in proportion as we bear 
in mind the power by which they are asserted 
to have been performed, and consider what 
nature and history teach of the Divine ends 
and methods in the government of the world. 

In substantial agreement with the above is 
one of the latest utterances of Professor Hux- 
ley: “Looking at the matter from the most 
rigidly scientific point of view, the assump- 
tion that, amidst the myriads of worlds in end- 
less space, there can be no intelligence 
endowed with powers of influencing the 
coursesoL matures ili )) seems tosme store 
only baseless, but impertinent. Without step- 
ping beyond the analogy of that which is 
known, it is easy to people the cosmos with 
entities in ascending scale until we reach 
something practically undistinguishable from 
omnipotence, omnipresence, and omnis- 
cience.’’® 

No less pertinent is the admission of Mr. 
Mill: “Once admit a God, and the production 
by his direct volition of an effect which in any 


6 Hssays on Some Controverted Questions, p. 27. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 125 


case owed its origin to his creative will, is no 
longer a purely arbitrary hypothesis, but must 
be reckoned with as a serious possibility. The 
question then changes its character, and the 
decision of it must now rest upon what is 
known as to the manner of God’s government 
of the universe.’”* 

‘Let us now see what we know of this— 
“the manner of God’s government of the uni- 
verse.” We are willing to leave the question 
with those who can not be charged with undue 
bias in the treatment of the subject. Mr. Mat- 
thew Arnold® speaks of “the power that makes 
for righteousness.” Mr. J. S. Mill tells us 
that “good is gradually gaining ground from 
evil,” and predicts “the very distant, but not 
uncertain final victory of good;’® while Pro- 
fessor Fiske’® declares that “the perfecting of 
humanity is to be the consummation of na- 


ture’s long and tedious work;” that “from the 
first dawning of life we see all things working 


toward one mighty goal, the evolution of the 


7Three Essays in Religion, p. 232. 
8Titerature and Dogma, p. 54; N. Y., 1877. 
9Three Essays in Religion, p. 256. 
10Destiny of Man, pp. 113, 118. 


126 MIRACLES 


most exalted spiritual qualities which char- 
acterize humanity.” 

Now, while perhaps nothing could be fur- 
ther from the minds of these writers than the 
idea of this glorious consummation being ef- 
fected, in any sense or degree, by such an in- 
terruption of nature’s order as is implied in 
the miracles of Jesus, yet one thing is certain: 
if nature is ruled by a Higher Power, and that 
Power has intended the “perfecting of human- 
ity’ or the “final victory of God,” there can 
be nothing unreasonable in believing that if 
this interruption be necessary to the accom- 
plishment of these ends, the interruption will 
certainly be effected; in other words, miracles 
will be wrought. There is nothing which sci- 
ence more urgently insists upon than the ne- 
cessity of means to the accomplishment of 
ends, which is only another way of saying that 
all effects must have adequate causes. 

“Facts,” says Rénan, “are to be explained 
by causes which are proportioned to them.’’?! 
The authors just quoted would cheerfully ad- 
mit that everything essential to the “consum- 
(Pu Te ot Jesus pibs3. ANP ae 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 127 


mation of nature’s long and tedious work’’ 
must surely come to pass, and no one could 
object to our looking forward and inquiring 
into the powers or causes by which this result 
is to be brought about. Why may we not, 
then, with equal freedom and propriety look 
backward along the line of history, and seek 
such causes as have thus far operated toward 
this accomplishment? We can see no reason 
why we may not here, in the history of Chris- 
tian thought, apply the same reasonings by 
which the scientist draws his conclusions as to 
the past physical history of our world. If the 
ethnologist can tell us of the habits of prehis- 
toric man, asserting with confidence that in 
one region of the globe only the stone age had 
been reached, in another the age of iron, be- 
cause present phenomena can be only thus 
explained; if the philologist, because of cer- 
tain peculiarities that mark their languages, 
can assert the migrations of the primitive Celts 
and Teutons from their original Aryan home, 
though there be neither record nor tradition 
of such migrations; if the geologist can point 
backward to a time when the greater part of 


128 MIRACLES 


North America was covered with ice and snow 
as is Greenland now, or when immense forests 
covered regions where now such a state of 
things would be impossible, and tells us that 
he believes in the period of ice and snow, and 
in those forests of the primeval world, because 
such facts were necessary as causes to the 
present condition of things,—if science can 
deal thus with the physical world, it can not be 
unscientific or unreasonable to believe that 
certain things now utterly unknown may have 
taken place as causes introductory to con- 
ditions at present existing in the moral or 
‘intellectual world. 

In these conditions are facts which are in- 
explicable even from the “most rigidly scien- 
tific point of view” only by the supposition 
that the regular course of events, or ordinary 
line of cause and effect, has been broken into 
somewhere at some time. If all things have 
gone on from the beginning in one unbroken 
train of fixed antecedence and consequence; 
if no extraordinary event, no extraordinary 
power brought to bear upon the thoughts and 
passions of mankind—no new force or impulse 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 129 


in morals or religion—can be discerned among 
the ordinary forces that have produced the 
phenomena of the world’s present, and for 
many generations past, intellectual and moral 
status, how can we account for the present fact 
and past history of Christianity in the world? 
The essential difference between Jesus him- 
self and all other religious teachers, and be- 
tween his system of truth and theirs, and be- 
tween the agencies by which Jesus and other 
religious teachers have sought to establish 
their claims to recognition by the world, to- 
gether with the superior estimation in which 
Jesus was held by his contemporaries, and has 
been held by subsequent ages, along with the 
success which has so gloriously crowned the 
work of Jesus,—these are things which can 
not be explained by natural law or order, by 
vague discussions of historical development, 
sociological causes, spirit of the age, or other 
like hypotheses. Let us suppose that these 
things owe their origin to the influence 
wielded by Jesus, believed in consequence of 
the miraculous powers with which he pro- 


fessed to be invested, to have been an ambas- 
9 


130 MIRACLES 


sador of peace and righteousness to the world, 
and all is clear. We shall at least have, in this 
supposition, the demand made by Rénan, that 
“Facts are to be explained by causes which are 
proportioned to them.” 

Besides being both possible and credible, 
the miracles, we repeat, were sensible; that is, 
such as the senses could discern. This fact 
must not be disregarded, as it affords an ample 
answer to certain objections which are now to 
be considered. 

Professor Huxley tells us that when a man 
testifies to a miracle, he not only states a fact, 
but he adds an interpretation of the fact. “We 
may admit his evidence as to the former, and 
yet think his opinion as to the latter worth- 
less;’!? and Professor Fiske: “Unless the wit- 
ness has a clear conception of the difference 
between the natural and the unnatural order 
of events, his testimony, however unimpeach- 
able on the score of honesty, is still worth- 
less,’!? while Rénan declares that “‘no miracle 
was ever performed before an assembly of men 


2 Christianity and Positivism, p. 190. 
13’The Unseen World, p. 136. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES I3I 


capable of establishing the miraculous char- 
acter of an act.” 

Now, as to the interpretation of the mir- 
acles, it must be noted that the witnesses gave 
no testimony or opinion whatsoever, and as 
to a “clear conception of the difference be- 
tween the natural and unnatural order of 
events,’ this is no more an element in the 
testimony to the events themselves than is a 
knowledge of astronomy part of what a man 
sees when the sun sets or rises. ‘Those wit- 
nesses testified to what their eyes had seen, 
and that was all. Had they gone farther than 
this, and asserted that those deeds of Jesus 
were miraculous in the sense understood by 
Professor Huxley, Mill, and others, we our- 
selves, equally with these objectors, should 
have rejected their testimony as a mere ex- 
pression of opinion concerning that which the 
witnesses knew no better than ourselves. 
Many of us might, indeed, from other causes 
admit the miraculous nature of those deeds, 
but not from any testimony of the witnesses. 
And as to there never having been a miracle 


4 The Life of Jesus, p. 44. 


132 MIRACLES 


“performed before an assembly of men capable 
of establishing the miraculous character of an 


99 
i) 


act,” if Rénan, by “miraculous character,” 
means a violation of the laws of nature, all that 
he here affirms may be readily granted. We 
fully agree that the assemblies before which 
Jesus wrought his miracles were not compe- 
tent to decide upon the miracles as thus de- 
fined; and as has just been said, they made no 
attempt at such decision. Neither could any 
assembly that might be called to-day decide 
the matter any better. With all our science, 
we could not tell whether in any given case a 
law of nature had been violated, or in any wise 
prevented from producing its legitimate re- 
sults. Science may now know only an infini- 
tesimal part of what even the most familiar 
laws may be made to accomplish. Who 
knows but that at some future day gravitation 
may be made to warm our dwellings, light our 
streets, or become a motive power, drawing 
with the accelerated speed of falling bodies 
our locomotives across the continent? Who 
knows all the capabilities of light, heat, elec- 
tricity, magnetism, the ethereal medium? All 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 133 


that the wisest can say of amy law as regards 
the miracles, is that, so far as 1s known, the 
law has, or has not, been violated. And in all 
humility we ask, What do we know of this? 
Absolutely nothing that can justify the all- 
sweeping assertions so often made upon the 
subject. 

Again, we emphasize the fact that the wit- 
nesses gave no “interpretation” of the mir- 
acles. ‘They testified only to what they had 
themselves beheld, and no other miracle was 
wrought by Jesus than such as the plainest, 
most unlettered man could witness, and of 
which his testimony was as valid as that of 
the most learned sage. Indeed, Jesus seems 
to have guarded this point with the utmost 
care. He never told the multitudes of mir- 
acles wrought in secret, or in distant lands, or 
in communication with unseen spiritual 
agents, such as have been often, by impostors, 
given in proof of their pretensions, and on at 
least one very marked occasion when it might 
have been charged upon him that he was pro- 
fessing things the certainty of which the mul- 
titudes could not know, he changed the nature 


134 MIRACLES 


of his act, or added an additional act, as to 
which there could be no doubt. After the 
paralytic had had his sins forgiven, “whether 
is easier,’’ says Jesus to the multitude, “‘to say, 
Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Rise, take 
up thy bed and walk?! as if to say, “You 
may not know whether this man’s sins have 
been forgiven, but you can see that his phys- 
ical infirmity is healed.” 

If it be claimed that the senses are an un- 
certain source of knowledge, and that, there- 
fore, those witnesses could not have had ab- 
solute certainty of the deeds to which they 
testified, we would refer the reader to what is 
admitted on this point by Mr. Mill: “The evi- 
dence of the senses can prove this (a miracle) 
as it can prove other things. That our senses 
have been deceived is a possibility which has 
to be met and dealt with, and we do deal with 
it by several means. If we repeat the experi- 
ment, and again with the same result; if at the 
time of the observation the impressions of our 
senses are in all respects the same as usual, 
rendering the supposition of their being mor- 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 135 


SLL 


bidly affected in this one particular extremely 
improbable; above all, if other people’s senses 
confirm the testimony of our own, we con- 
clude with reason that we may trust our 
senses. Indeed, our senses are all we have to 
trust to.’’® 

Mr. Mill here lays down the conditions 
under which the evidence of the senses may 
be taken in proof of miracles. We now main- 
tain that every one of these conditions belongs 
to the evidence under consideration. The 
miracles were surely often enough repeated. 
How many of the sick were healed, how many 
of the lame made to walk, of the blind made 
to see, of the deaf to hear; how many of the 
lepers were cleansed, how many demoniacs 
dispossessed of their evil spirits, and, besides 
the general statement of Jesus that he raised 
the dead, we have distinct accounts of the 
raising of the widow’s son, of Jairus’s daugh- 
ter, of Lazarus, of Jesus himself. Should it be 
objected that the attendant circumstances in 
these several cases were not the same, and 
that, therefore, there were no such repetitions 


16‘Three Essays in Religion, pp. 217, 218. 


136 MIRACLES 


as Mr. Mill demands, the reply is (1) that the 
variety of circumstances only made more 
manifest the miracles, for each variation 
showed the more plainly that these deeds were 
not mere juggleries previously arranged; and 
(2) whatever may have been the circum- 
stances, the miracles themselves were, all of 
the like class, the same. The sight restored 
was, in the one case, the same miracle as the 
sight restored in the other cases; and so of the 
hearing, walking, cleansing, and the raising of 
the dead. 

Not only the repetitions called for by Mr. 
Mill are seen in the accounts of the miracles, 
but “at the time of observation”’ the disciples’ 
senses were evidently “in all respects the same 
as usual.” There is no indication of undue ex- 
citement on their part, no unusual depression 
or exaltation of the spirits, no wild fanaticism, 
no intoxication from wine, no insanity, no 
more nearsightedness or blindness than is usu- 
ally found where large numbers of men are 
concerned; nothing leading to the belief that 
those witnesses were in any abnormal con- 
dition of either intellect or senses. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 137 


And, then, each man who witnessed had his 
senses confirmed by what “other people’s 
senses’ told them. That this was the case no 
one doubts. What one witness professed to 
have seen was seen by all, and all believed that 
what they saw was fact. 

We desire no better statement of our case 
than has just been made out by Mr. Mill. 

But let us hear Rénan again: “None of the 
miracles with which ancient histories were 
filled occurred under scientific conditions.’’7 

These conditions are thus plainly stated: 
“Let a thaumaturgist present himself to- 
morrow with testimony sufficient to merit our 
attention. Let him announce that he is able, 
I will suppose, to raise the dead. What would 
be done? A commission, composed of physi- 
ologists, physicians, chemists, persons experi- 
enced in historical criticism, would be ap- 
pointed. This commission would choose the 
corpse, make certain that death was real, des- 
ignate the hall in which the experiment should 
be made, and regulate the whole system of 
precautions necessary to leave no room for 


li The Life of Jesus, p. 43. 


138 MIRACLES 


ar EEEEEEEEEE RISES ERETEEEREREER REE 


doubt. If, under such conditions, the resur- 
rection should be performed, a probability al- 
most equal to certainty would be attained. 
If then, on repetition, the miracle suc- 

ceeds each time, two things would be proven: 
First, that supernatural actions do come to 
pass in the world; second, that the power to 
perform them belongs, or is delegated, to cer- 
tain persons. But who does not see that no 
miracle was ever performed under such con- 
ditions; that always hitherto the thauma- 
turgist has chosen the subject of the experi- 
ment, chosen the means, chosen the public?’’?® 
Upon the above we would remark: In the 
first place, it is not true of Jesus, however, 
it may have been with others, that he always 
chose the subject and chose the public. Of 
course, he did choose the means, and it were 
absurd to object to this in one who professed 
to do what none others could; but as to time, 
place, subject, public, these were in every in- 
stance chosen by others, or at least presented 
by circumstances over which Jesus had no 
control, unless it be admitted that he pos- 


8 The Life of Jesus, p. 44. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 139 


sessed power here of the very same kind that 
must be admitted in the working of the mir- 
acles. If Jesus knew beforehand that the fig- 
tree was going to wither just when it did, and 
had so ordered his own goings and the goings 
of his disciples that he passed the tree just in 
time to curse it, and thus make it appear to 
have withered in consequence of his words; or 
if he knew just when a storm was going to rise 
upon the lake, and just when the storm would 
abate, so that he could take his disciples into 
the boat and row out from land, and fall 
asleep, and be waked up just in time to com- 
mand, “Peace, be still,’ and have the ensuing 
quiet to pass off as the working of a miracle,— 
if Jesus could choose subjects, times, and 
places in such a way as this, we make no fur- 
ther argument; our point is gained; here are 
miracles in knowledge equally striking with 
any miracles of power, and we could desire 
none better proven. 

Our second remark is: We grant that no 
miracle, at least none of those by Jesus, was 
ever performed under “scientific conditions,” 
as prescribed in the paragraph just quoted. 


140 MIRACLES 


And we can not see what had been gained, or 
what could now be gained, by having the mir- 
acles wrought in the presence of the “com- 
mission” which Rénan would name. If it be 
said that such an assembly would be more 
careful to ascertain the facts involved, it may 
be replied that it were hardly possible for a 
body of grave philosophers, in calmly testing 
the truth of the miracles, to display the zeal 
or resolution of those old scribes and Phari- 
sees in their determination to prove the mir- 
acles false. See how, in the case of the man 
born blind,!® they do all in their power to dis- 
prove the miracle. They examine the man 
himself, they examine his parents, to satisfy 
themselves that he had really been blind from 
birth; and that they then grew angry and 
drove the man away shows how intense had 
been their interest, and at the same time how 
signal their failure to catch Jesus in a mere act 
of fraud; and certainly it would not be con- 
tended that the priests to whom Jesus him- 
self sent the lepers for the determination of 
their cleansing,?® could be indifferent or re- 


Wyohn ix. 20 Mark i, 44; Luke v, 14. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES I4I 


PAVE Aer ON eke 
miss in doing that as to which law, bigotry, 
prejudice, hate, all combined to stimulate their 
zeal. As for a body of “physiologists, chem- 
ists, physicians, and persons experienced in 
historical criticism” being better able to de- 
cide the case than were those contemporaries 
of Jesus, this is manifestly all assumption. 
Such men could not have made the laws of 
nature to act any the more or any the less reg- 
ularly; they could not have caused the day- 
light to shine any the more clearly, or the eye 
to see any the more distinctly, or the intellect 
to apprehend any the more unerringly. 
Neither could they themselves have seen any 
better than those witnesses whether or not the 
lame man walked, or the sea was calmed. 
That men unskilled and unlearned, like those 
that followed Jesus, were more disposed than 
Rénan’s “commission” would have been to 
assign supernatural causes to what they 
saw, is a fact most cheerfully admitted. 
But those witnesses said nothing about such 
causes. Even had they done this, their 
testimony as to the causes had not invali- 
dated their evidence as to the facts of the mir- 


142 MIRACLES 


acles. ‘The peasant sees the moon eclipsed, or 
the tornado carrying desolation in its sweep; 
sees these things equally with the man of sci- 
ence; and he sees them none the less clearly, 
and he reports them none the less accurately, 
because in his ignorance he ascribes them to 
the agency of supernatural beings, to genii, or 
demons. As to mere facts, what we require, 
even with all our skill in criticism, is the testi- 
mony of witnesses of good eyes and ears, 
sound minds, and truth-telling habits; or when 
such habits can not be ascertained, witnesses 
of whom we have no reasonable ground for 
believing them, from moral or intellectual in- 
firmity disposed to falsehood or liable to de- 
lusion. Other things being equal in plain 
matters of eyesight or hearing, the testimony 
of the illiterate man is equally valid, and is so 
taken in the courts, with that of the most 
learned or skilled logician. As to matters 
generally, matters, too, of the gravest import, 
“men of the people” and “men of the world” 
determine both for themselves and others 
without the aid of “scientific research,” “sci- 


entific conditions,” or wise savans; and the 


——— ee 7. 


INCREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES 143 


whole world of ‘“‘physiologists, chemists, phy- 
sicians, persons experienced in historical criti- 
cism’’ determine in the very same way. The 
physiologist tells for himself; so does the phy- 
sician, so the chemist, so all the world, learned 
or unlearned, whether one is sick or not, and 
whether his friend has really died. And were 
a deceased friend to rise from the grave, the 
humblest man in the world could tell just as 
certainly as Rénan’s commission could, 
whether the man was really alive. 


CHAP TE REY: 


General Review of the Adverse 
Argument 


FE, have now considered the leading ob- 
jections both to the miracles and to 
the proof, and we have no hesitation in saying 
that the proof, so far from being weakened or 
obscured by these objections, is, on the other 
hand, confirmed and set forth in clearer light. 
As to the proof itself, very little has been pro- 
posed by way of effort toward a direct refu- 
tation of it; that is, effort to prove it false or 
spurious. It is manifest, therefore, that it is 
the miracles themselves, and not the evidence, 
on which the objectors have based their op- 
position. 

In other words, from the nature of the 
miracles has been drawn the argument by 
_ which the fact of miracles is to be disproved, 
a mode of reasoning in the highest degree 


absurd, unless it can be shown that in the very 
144 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 145 


REE EON 
conception of miracles absolute impossibility 
is implied; and as such impossibility has not 
been shown, as, on the other hand, the possi- 
bility of miracles in the light of theism has 
been fully admitted by such men as Mill and 
Huxley—and must be admitted by all who 
believe in God—to argue against the miracles 
because of any peculiarity in their nature, were 
equally unreasonable with an effort to dis- 
prove, in the same way, any other things in 
the least degree peculiar. Such a mode of 
reasoning, therefore, besides being unsound 
in principle, would, if generally applied, be 
found ruinous in its consequences. It would 
check the advance of science; it would make 
us reject many of the most familiar truths in 
history, and cause us, sometimes, to doubt the 
reality even of what our eyes have seen. 

he miracles, like other alleged facts of his- 
tory, are to be determined, not by consider- 
ation of what they were, or how they were 
performed, but by the simple question whether 
or not we have the proof. Any other way of 
treating the subject is unscientific in the high- 
est degree. Professor Huxley says that “the 


146 MIRACLES 


question as to what Jesus actually said and did 
is capable of solution by no other methods 
than those practiced by the historian and lit- 
erary critic.”? If this be true, it follows that 
the like method must be applied in ascertain- 
ing, among the many things ascribed to Jesus, 
what he actually did not say and did not do. 
But this is far from being the method pursued 
by those whose reasonings have been before 
us. Instead of investigating the miracles as 
the historian or literary critic would have dealt 
with other events of the past; that is, by im- 
partial consideration of the evidence in hand, 
these objectors have paid very little attention 
to the evidence, otherwise than by general, in- 
direct assaults, the tendency of which has been 
to induce in the reader’s mind such opposition 
to the miracles themselves as might deprive 
the evidence of its legitimate effect. They 


| » have told us in’ decided terms what kind of 


evidence can not, not what evidence can, sus- 
tain these acts of Jesus; they have given broad 
general statements of the fallibility of testi- 
mony as a means of proof; they have discussed 


1Christianity and Agnosticism, p. 16. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 147 


the nature of miracles, and their relation to 
law or order; but not one of them has under- 
taken either to rebut the evidence by oppos- 
ing evidence, or to cast discredit upon the 
general character of the records from which the 
evidence has been drawn. In instances not a 
few they have reasoned in a way that sets logic 
at defiance. Mr. Hume’s fallacy is most no- 
torious. From first to last his argument runs 
upon the contrariety between miracles and ex- 
perience; but he nowhere tells us whether by 
experience he means the experience of the 
reader, the experience of the world in general, 
or the uniform, invariable experience of all 
mankind. If he means anything else than this 
latter definition, he argues in support of a 
proposition wholly irrelevant, and one that 
needs no proof; and if this latter definition be 
his meaning—if no individual of the human 
race has seen a miracle—his argument is a 
mere begging of the question, and amounts 
only to saying that the disciples of Jesus had 
seen no miracles, because miracles have never 
been seen! 

Mr. Mill, besides the irrelevancy in his at- 


148 MIRACLES 


tempt to disparage the evidence by calling it 


, 


“the evidence of books and traditions,’ most 
palpably contradicts himself when he objects 
to the supernatural in the miracles as placing 
them beyond our ability properly to discern; 
for he most positively asserts, as we have seen, 
that supernatural deeds can be known by the 
senses just as other things are known, and vir- 
tually admits that if we reject the testimony 
of the senses here, we must equally reject it in 
the other facts of life and history. No less 
illogical is Professor Huxley seen to be. His 
argument as to the “ingraining” of the mind 
proves too much, and therefore fails to prove 
the point in question. Besides this, a more 
enormous extravagance was never perpetrated 
than is seen in the assumption that the wit- 
nesses’ minds were so ingrained with belief in 
miracles that no degree or quality of intellec- 
tual, moral, or'literary character could make 
their testimony valid. An assumption, this, 
bold enough and absurd enough as applied to 
those friends who followed Jesus; applied to 
those enemies who hated Jesus with a diabol- 
ical frenzy, and placed themselves in antago- 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 149 


nism at every point, the idea that these men 
were so fully controlled by their ingrained be- 
lief as to be compelled to testify to the mir- 
acles, and thus strengthen the cause of One 
they were doing all in their power to resist, de- 
mands a credulityatwhich old Apella might be 
amazed. Ifit be allowed that both the friends 
and enemies of a cause may be so “ingrained” 
as to pervert the plainest facts, and in the 
same direction, we may throw our logic as well 
as physic to the dogs, and the world will be 
the gainer. 

As for the effort made by Hume and Hux- 
ley to put other alleged miracles upon an 
equality, as regards the evidence, with those 
of Jesus, the utmost that their argument can 
possibly effect is to show inconsistency on the 
part of those who either accept or reject this 
evidence. If there are those who, with what 
to them is satisfactory evidence, will not admit 
the miracles of Jesus, because this would com- 
pel the admission of those other so-called mir- 
acles; or who, on the other hand, reject these 
latter because they have previously accepted 
these works of Jesus, it is manifest that such 


150 MIRACLES 


i’ 


persons base their conclusions upon other 
grounds than that of evidence, and hence, 
whatever they may or may not do in the prem- 
ises, the evidence itself is not affected, and all 
said about the pseudo-miracles has nothing in 
the least to do with the case. 

Mill, Hume, Huxley, all dogmatically as- 
sert what they can not know to be true, when 
they pronounce the miracles incredible, as 
being in violation of the laws of nature; and 
in this assertion they presume to know either 
that the Author of nature can not, or that he 
will not, operate his laws to the accomplish- 
ment of his own behests. 

Indeed, it may be said—with becoming 

modesty, we hope—that bold-assertion, indi- 
rection, irrelevancy, foregone conclusion, are 
leading features of the anti-miracle argument 
by whomsoever made; and one would hazard 
little in challenging the entire brotherhood of 
disbelievers to construct an argument which 
shall be free from these charges. ‘Theories, 


~~ not facts; hypotheses, not established truths; 


assumptions, not generally admitted prin- 
ciples, have largely furnished the material of 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT I51 


SN EERE 


the argument, and if the skeptical reader will 
fairly analyze his own doubts or oppositions, 
he will find them based upon one or more of 
these erroneous ways of reasoning. 


If the evidence for these miracles is to be 


set aside, one of the following things must be —~ 


done: Either show that the testimony given in 
the Gospels is interpolation introduced by 
fraudulent or misguided editors or transcrib- 
ers, and hence forms no part of the original 
records; in other words, that we have no evi- 
dence for the miracles; or, bring forward op- 
posing evidence—the testimony of men who 
had opportunity of knowing the facts in ques- 
tion, who yet declare that miracles were not 
wrought by Jesus; or, show more reliable 
memoirs or biographies of Jesus, which are 
silent as to miracles; or, take the testimony 
as we find it, and prove either self-contradic- 
tion or mutual contradiction of the witnesses; 
or, establish the mental or moral incompe- 
tency of the witnesses; or, prove an alibi of 
them, or that they were forced to give their 
testimony, or that they had adequate reward 
in view to induce them to invent a gigantic 


152 MIRACLES 


falsehood; or, finally, show the essential im- 
possibility of the miracles, that is, that mir- 
acles are impossible, whether with or without 
the power of God. 

That not one of these things has been done, 
or even attempted, it is quite needless to as- 
sert. The incompetency of the witnesses and 
the impossibility of miracles have been af- 
firmed; but not only has no proof been offered 
in the premises, but not even an argument has 
been adventured on the subject. As to fraud- 
ulent or interpolated records of the testimony 
—or testimony contrary to that of the Gos- 
pels—or more reliable records that make no 
mention of the miracles, or contradictions of 
any kind among the witnesses, as to the gen- 
eral fact of the miracles being performed, or 
as to proving alibi of the witnesses, or that 
they were forced or otherwise made to give 
their testimony,—as to all these things not one 
word has been written by those whose objec- 
tions have been under review. 

Whatever may be the power of the adverse 
argument, before this testimony can be over- 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 153 


thrown the following questions must be an- 
swered : 

1. How came it, if the miracles were not 
performed, that the testimony was given to 
the world? 

2. How can we explain that the testimony 
passed uncontradicted at the time when, if 
false, it could have been so easily refuted? 

3. How are we to account for the world’s 
high estimate of Jesus, and the establishment 
of his kingdom in the world? 

As to the first of these questions, it will be 
admitted unequivocally that the witnesses 
either believed, or they did not believe, the 
testimony which they gave. There is no mid- 
dle proposition here. If they did not believe, 
their testimony was a conscious, if not indeed 
a fabricated, falsehood; if they did believe in 
the miracles when no miracles had been per- 
formed, they were under the power of some 
strange infatuation, which either beguiled 
their senses or befogged their reason, and they 
were incapable of knowing the truth as to the 
plainest facts. 


154 MIRACLES 


Now, let us admit for a moment that the 
miracles were not performed, and assume that 
the testimony which we have was a concerted 
scheme of falsehood. To maintain this po- 
sition we must show not only sufficient motive 
for the falsehood, but adequate means for the 
successful propagation of it among the peo- 
ple; in other words, show both why and how 
those witnesses so deceived the world. 

Let us here consider (1) that Jesus himself 
bore testimony to the miracles, and (2) that 
no less positively than either by Jesus or his 
disciples was the testimony given by the ene- 
mies of Jesus. Now, as to Jesus, no one, even 
of the boldest, has dared to charge him with 
falsehood, or an invention of the testimony; 
and while we may easily see reason for his ene- 
mies forging evidence in denial of the mir- 
acles, it is utterly inconceivable that they 
should have made up stories in proof that the 
miracles were performed. We are equally at 
a loss to understand, or conjecture even, why 
the disciples and other friends of Jesus should 
have attempted such a thing. Had those who 
testified of the miracles been high officials in 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 155 


a Church of long standing and commanding 
influence, deriving large income or honors 
from their offices, there had been some reason 
for believing that they might, if possible, 
either have fabricated a marvelous story to 
exalt their leader and themselves, or done all 
in their power to make current such a story 
devised by others. But such advantages were 
not connected with the cause of Christ. There 
was no Church except that whose highest dig- 
nitaries were their enemies; there were no re- 
wards or honors placed before them, no favors 
to gain from either high or low. Scorn, con- 
tempt, poverty, arduous toil, dangerous travel 
by land and sea; all manner of discouragement 
in the way of bonds, scourgings, imprison- 
ments, death,—these were the honors, these the 
rewards of the testimony by which they would 
deceive mankind. Would a number of men 
willfully invent and persistently carry through- 
out the world a falsehood from which they had 
not one thing to gain, but everything to lose? 

But allowing the frenzy that might have 
prompted such a course, we can not see how 
such success should have crowned the mad de- 


156 MIRACLES 


sign. That one or two men should have 
formed a plan for the deception of their fellow- 
men, and for awhile escaped detection in their 
fraud, is by no means incredible; such things 
have occurred. But that any considerable 
number of men should have succeeded 
through a long series of years in deluding en- 
tire communities into the belief of a concerted 
fraud, among the very people who might have 
known, if indeed they did not already know, 
the certainty of the matter—concerted, too, 
at the very time when the subject of the gross 
deception was in their midst creating an in- 
terest that had aroused the hate and prejudice 
of the authorities of both Church and State— 
the fraud not even in the long generations fol- 
lowing the deaths of the perpetrators of it 
being discovered and announced, is incredible 
beyond expression. 

No more plausible is the idea of these wit- 
nesses being the subjects of a wild hallucina- 
tion when they told their stories. Shall it be 
said that they were weak, credulous men, 
those early followers of Jesus, sharing thus 
the general spirit of their age, a love of the ~ 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 157 


marvelous and a ready belief, without investi- 
gation, of whatsoever might strike the im- 
agination, or feed their fondness for the mar- 
velous? Now, however truly might thus be 
described the Jews in general in those days, 
nothing could be less applicable than such a 
description to the men who followed Jesus. 
We have already seen what kind of men those 
followers of Jesus were. Let us now see how 
they behaved themselves as regards the mir- 
acles, at least that greatest of all miracles, the 
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. See how 
skeptical at first they were! The priests ap- 
pear to have believed in the resurrection from 
the very first. Their conversation with the 
guard, and proposal to bribe them into telling 
that the body had been stolen from the grave, 
clearly shows us that they entertained no 
doubt that the resurrection had really taken 
place; but these disciples, how skeptical they 
were! In no one instance did they believe 
mere rumor or report, or even the solemn as- 
severations made by members of their own 
body. When Mary and the other women re- 
ported that Jesus was alive again, they scouted 


158 MIRACLES 


at their words as “an idle tale” or nonsense, as 
the word may be better rendered. When the 
two that went to Emmaus informed the others 
that they had seen their Lord, again they 
would not believe.? When Jesus appeared be- 
fore them on the evening of the same day,‘ he 
had to upbraid their unbelief, and gained their 
assent only by calling upon them to handle 
his hands and feet, and see. Thomas, in- 
formed of this occurrence, would not believe 
until he had not only seen with his own eyes, 
but had laid his finger into the print of the 
nails, and had thrust his hand into the 
wounded side of Jesus.® 

Had there been any error or deception 
here, or had the disciples been under the 
power of some strange, mysterious spell that 
hoaxed or befooled their visions, they cer- 
tainly had ample time, as they had ample oc- 
casion, for their disenchantment. Had their 
training, or want of training, made them con- 
tent with their belief without investigation fur- 
ther than they had already given, or had they, 


2 Ajpoc, Luke xxiv, II. 3Mark xvi, 13. 
4Mark xvi, 14; Luke xxiv, 36. 5John xx, 24 to 31. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 159 


from any cause, been insensible to the obli- 
gation of ascertaining the truth of the matter, 
they could hardly have remained long in such 
indifference; the hard fates encountered had 
waked them up to at least the possibility of 
their being deceived, and made them look 
about for proof—absolute proof; proof against 
which not even a suspicion could be raised. 
But those disciples seem not only to have had 
proof perfectly satisfactory to themselves, but 
proof equally satisfactory to those before 
whom they laid their cause. So far from hav- 
ing the least suspicion of error or deception, 
they go forth with a boldness almost super- 
human, and succeed in making multitudes of 
others believe the very things that had set 
them wild. Set them wild? Could men with 
such confidence in their statements, and such 
success in making others, even their deadliest 
enemies, equally confident with themselves— 
could these men have been wild, insane? 
These men, all, both those who told and those 
who heard, believed the wonderful story. 
Strange infatuation this! A number of men 
had seen something, or thought they saw it, 


160 MIRACLES 


which they took for Jesus risen from the dead; 
they had seen divers persons or things in 
divers places, which they had imagined to be 
their risen Lord, and these grotesque imagi- 
nations they had passed off as sober facts upon 
thousands of sober-minded people, who them- 
selves likewise immediately set to work telling 
the same absurd stories; all of them, besides 
making fools and madmen of themselves, 
liable at any time to stripes or crucifixion, and 
yet ultimately establishing their wild delusion 
as the controlling belief of the leading nations 
of the globe! 

Now, allowing such wholesale delusion to 
have been possible, how did it first get a start 
among the people? How, in what condition 
of things, in what event, in what interest, prej- 
udice, superstition, could it have originated? 

Inasmuch as this idea of delusion has been 
made so popular through the writings of Ré- 
nan and Strauss, we must consider it some- 
what more at length. Seeing the impossibility 
of refuting the evidence, these authors have 
accepted the testimony as true, in the main, 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 161 


in regard to the subjective facts concerned; 
they have denied the objective reality of the 
miracles. The miracles were mere beliefs, vis- 
ions, hallucinations, or illusions. 

Thus Strauss: 

“Tsaiah had prophesied that at that time, 
the time of the Messiah, the eyes of the blind 
should be opened, and the ears of the deaf 
should hear; then shall the lame man leap like 
a deer, and the tongue of the stammerer shall 
speak fluently. Thus it was known in detail 
what sort of miracles Jesus, having been the 
Messiah, must have performed; and so it hap- 
pened that, in the earliest Church, narratives 
might be—nay, could not fail to be—invented 
without any consciousness of invention on the 
part of the authors of them.’ 

That is, the people believed the miracles, 
not because they had been performed by Jesus, 
but because they, the people, were expecting 
that miracles would be performed when the 
Messiah should appear. 

Several objections, any one of which is 


6New Life, p. 202. 
II 


162 MIRACLES 


fatal, present themselves immediately upon 
the reading of this myth theory of the great 
German skeptic. 

In the first place, Strauss has not shown‘ 
us that the Jews placed such literal interpre- 
tations upon those ancient prophecies, and 
we can not believe that such vast numbers of 
men were so illogical as to have reasoned in 
the way here asserted of them. The Messiah 
would work miracles. Jesus was the Messiah; 
therefore Jesus had worked miracles! Men 
might reason thus on mere abstract propo- 
sitions, or about things as to which they could 
not know the certainty, but never as to plain 
statements of facts, the reality or unreality of 
which was matter of eyesight, no mere infer- 
ence or interpretation. Even allowing that 
the prophecies concerning the Messiah might 
have given rise to the belief in such miracles 
as Strauss has named, there is a large variety 
of them as to which the belief can not possibly 
be thus accounted for. Those prophecies 


7There is no contemporary Jewish history of those 
days; that is, none except the Gospels: no contempo- 
rary works of any kind by Jews. . 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT . 163 


made no promise of such miracles as walking 
on the sea, withering the fig-tree, or raising 
the dead, or of Jesus himself rising from the 
grave. 

And, then, granting that “the earliest 
Church” might have believed the miracles in 
the way explained by Strauss, it certainly will 
not be admitted that thus the belief originated 
on the part of those who denied the Messiah- 
ship of Jesus. rot 

This theory violates both the logical and 
the chronological order of events in the life 
of Jesus. It violates the logical order in mak- 
ing the myths arise out of the belief that Jesus 
was the Messiah; whereas the records—the 
very records which Strauss makes the basis of 
his argument—show that the belief in the 
Messiahship arose out of the working of the 
miracles. “We know that thou art a teacher 
come from God, for no man can do these mir- 
acles that thou doest except God be with 
him.” 

The theory violates the chronological order 
in assuming that the belief arose only after 


8John iii, 2, 


164 MIRACLES 


Jesus had virtually accomplished his ministry, 
at least as a divine commissioner from God, 
while we know that the belief existed almost 
at the very opening of the public life of Jesus. 
Only a short time after the baptism was held 
the conversation with Nicodemus, from which 
quotation has just been made, and it was but 
little subsequent to this that Jesus declared, 
as evidence of his Messiahship, that the blind 
received their sight, the lame walked, the 
lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard, and 
the dead were raised. 

Again, it is not conceivable that myths as 
to the miracles could have arisen among a 
people who were contemporaneous with Jesus. 
Admitting all that may be said as to the ra- 
pidity with which myths may be formed, it is 
impossible to believe that untrue stories of the 
miracles could have connected with the name 
of Jesus, Jesus himself not only being yet 
alive, but even now and then, on different 
occasions, calling their attention to the facts 
as to which the myths are said to have been 
believed. Had Jesus said nothing at all about 
the miracles; or had he merely claimed the 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 165 


Nd ORANG Ee NR UR i ac 
power, or only made the promise to perform 
them at some other time; or had he given ac- 
counts of miracles performed in distant places, 
or in some past time, so that those whom he 
addressed had had no opportunity of ascer- 
taining the truth of what he said; or had the 
miracles been reported by others only after 
the death of Jesus, we might readily see how 
among throngs of friends and admirers such 
myths or legends, as Strauss supposes, may 
have arisen, even at a very early day, and been 
credited by many as actual facts. But how- 
ever stich myths may have been regarded by 
others, we can not believe that those disciples, 
intimate associates of Jesus, could have been 
deluded by them. Such men certainly knew 
whether they saw the miracles, or were merely 
listening to vague rumors that had no other 
foundation than their uncertain interpreta- 
tions of a few ancient prophecies. Can we 
conceive of a man, even of large numbers of 
men, not knowing the difference between a 
set of myths and actual facts which purported 
to have fallen under their own immediate ob- 
servation? And could Jesus himself have 


166 MIRACLES 


either believed or propagated myths as to 
things said to have been accomplished by him- 
self? or could he have gotten the multitudes 
to believe that they had seen habitually, 
from day to day, things which both eyesight 
and memory told them they had never seen? 
We might ourselves to-day be deceived into 
believing as facts what were only the legends 
of an age long past; but unless we should lose 
our reason, nothing could make us thus to 
blunder in regard to things said to be taking 
place before our very eyes. 

Of this myth theory Rénan makes appli- 
cation only to the raising of Lazarus from the 
grave. In the first edition of his Life of Jesus 
(page 304, etc.), he freely admits that “some- 
thing took place at Bethany which was re- 
garded as a resurrection,’ but attempts to 
make it a mere trick of Lazarus, who had 
“caused himself to be swathed in grave-clothes 
as one dead, and shut up in the family tomb;” 
that Jesus thought Lazarus was dead, and upon 
having the stone removed, that he might once 
more look upon the beloved form, better than 
was expected, Lazarus actually did come | 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 167 


forth, and then Jesus thought, and the friends 
and relatives present all thought, that there 
was a resurrection from the dead!’ 

Rénan himself could not endure to see this 
folly abiding permanently in his book, and 
hence, in a subsequent edition, he “interprets” 
differently that “supernatural relation.” He 
now has it that a conversation as to the neces- 
sity of some great miracle to persuade the 
people had gotten turned and twisted until, by 
frequent repetition, what was originally a 
mere supposition or suggestion had, in the 
popular belief, come to be an actual fact. Let 
us see what he says: 

“Weary of the poor welcome which the 
kingdom of God was receiving from the Jews, 
the friends of Jesus, it seems, desired that 
some great deed should be accomplished 
which would boldly strike the incredulous 
Jews. A resurrection appeared to be what 
was wanting to convince them. We may sup- 
pose that Mary and Martha opened the sub- 
ject to Jesus. Rumor had already ascribed 
to him two or three deeds of this kind. ‘If one 
should rise from the dead, doubtless,’ ex- 


168 MIRACLES 


claimed the pious sisters, ‘the living would 
perhaps repent.’ ‘No,’ said Jesus, ‘even 
should a dead man rise to life, they would not 
believe.’ Then, as they recalled a story which 
was familiar to him, that of the poor Lazarus 
who had died and been carried by angels into 
Abraham’s bosom, ‘No,’ again replied Jesus, 
‘they would not believe though Lazarus 
should return.’ In course of time singular 
misunderstandings arose as to this conversa- 
tion. The hypothesis became fact. Lazarus 
was spoken of as raised from the dead. 

When we bear in mind what cock-and-bull 
stories arise from the gossipings of an Oriental 
village, we can not regard it impossible that 
a report of this kind should have reached 
Jerusalem, and been attended with fatal con- 
sequences.’”? 

As to the resurrection of Jesus, Rénan re- 
sorts to the notion of illusions or hallucina- 
tions. Strauss, here, still holds on to his 
myths or legends; but his explanations are so 
similar to those of the French critic that a sep- 


®Vie de Jesus, XIIIth Edition, p. 372. Paris, 1867. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 16g 


arate presentation of them need not here be 
given.'° We present, therefore, only the res- 
urrection as explained in the Frenchman’s 
“Life of Jesus:” 

“The disciples during the first hours which 
elapsed after his [Jesus’] death, had in this 
respect no fixed hope. The sentiments which 
they so artlessly confide to us show that they 
believed all to be over. They bewail and bury 
their friend, if not as one of the common herd 
who had died, at least as a person whose loss 
was irreparable; they were sorrowful and cast 
down; the expectation which they had in- 
dulged of seeing him realize the salvation of 
Israel is proved to have been vanity.’’"? 

“The reign of God and the reign of the 
Spirit consisted, in their ideas, in a complete 
transformation of the world, and in the anni- 
hilation of death. To acknowledge that death 
could have the victory over Jesus, over him 
who came to abolish the power of death, this 


10New Faith and Old, p. 79; also New Life of Jesus, 


I, p. 420, 
ll The Apostles, p. 54. 


170 MIRACLES 


was the height of absurdity. The very idea 
that he could suffer had previously been re- 
volting to his disciples. They had no choice, 
then, between despair and heroic affirmation. 
A man of penetration might have announced 
during the Saturday that Jesus would arise. 
The little Christian society on that day worked 
the veritable miracle; they resuscitated Jesus 
in their hearts by the love which they bore 
toward him. They decided that Jesus had not 
dieds’77 

See now his explanation of the appearance 
of Jesus to Mary: 

“Peter and John having departed from the 
garden, Mary alone remained at the edge of 
the cave. One sole thought occupied her 
mind, Where had they put the body? Sud- 
denly she hears a light rustling behind her; 
there isa man standing. . . . She thinks 
that she hears herself called by her name, 
Mary. It was the voice that had so often 
thrilled her before. It was the accent of Jesus. 

The miracle of love is accomplished. 


12The Apostles, p. 56. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT I7I 


The resurrection has its first direct 
witness.’’?? 

One other “interpretation” of these “‘super- 
natural relations” we give—the appearance of 
Jesus to the two disciples on their way to 
Emmaus: 

“They were conversing together over the 
recent events, and were full of sadness. On 
the road an unknown Companion joined them, 
and inquired the cause of their grief. ‘Art 
thou, then, the only stranger at Jerusalem, 
that thou knowest not what things are come 
to pass there?’ . .°. ‘The day was draw- 
ing to a close; the memories of the two dis- 
ciples become more vivid. This hour of the 
evening meal was that which they remem- 
bered with the greatest pleasure and regret. 
How often had they, at that very hour, seen 
their beloved Master forget the duties of the 
day in the abandon of pleasant conversation, 
and, cheered by the repast, speak to them of 
the fruit of the vine which he should drink 
anew with them in the kingdom of his Father! 

13The Apostles, p. 60. 


172 MIRACLES 


rr 


Giving way to a sort of pleasurable 
sadness, they forget the stranger; it is Jesus 
whom they see holding the bread. 

The conviction of the two disciples was that 
they had seen Jesus.”** 

Of like character are all the “interpreta- 
tions” by Rénan, of Jesus’ meetings with the 
disciples. 

Several considerations the reader must now 
note in regard to these efforts to explain away 
the facts in the face of the testimony which 
has been admitted. 

Rénan and Strauss both accept the sub- 
jective verity of the Gospel miracles; the ob- 
jective facts must, therefore, be allowed, un- 
less the subjective verities can be otherwise 


best explained. 

Aside from the Gospels there are no writ- 
ten documents or other information as to how 
these illusions could have originated; none, at 
least, except the apocryphal writings which 
likewise narrate miracles in the life of Jesus. 
Whatever is said, therefore, by way of ac- 
‘aaerhe Apostles, p65) hi way tn. eee 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 173 


counting for the belief in miracles as recorded 
in the Gospels must be bare hypothesis. 

If the “historical” or “literary method” is 
to be pursued in this investigation, not every 
supposition that has plausibility can account 
for the origin of these visions or beliefs; the 
supposition must rest upon a basis of generally 
admitted historical facts as distinguished from 
all mere speculation or hypothesis. 

The supposition or hypothesis, therefore, 
must itself need no explanation; that is, it 
must not call for other hypotheses in explana- 
tion of itself, neither must it, without other 
such hypotheses, be more difficult to explain 
than the beliefs in explanation of which it has 
been devised. 

Any hypothesis that would be accepted by 
the historical or literary method must not only 
satisfactorily account for these visions or hal- 
lucinations; it must be the only satisfactory 
explanation that can be given of them. So 
long as two or more hypotheses can account 
for any given fact, whether of the laws of mat- 
ter or in the workings of the mind, such fact 


174 MIRACLES 


| GSS SIS W EES RES EER POE SNE 9 EL SE EE TS SENS SLE LED RLS ELA, 


remains wholly unexplained; just as no man 
is proven guilty of a crime so long as it can 
be shown, with equal plausibility, that any 
other man, or men, might have done the deed. 

Now, it is quite easy to see that none of 
these conditions have been fulfilled in the “in- 
terpretations” which have been given. ‘Re- 
nan has not offered a better explanation of 
the subjective facts than would be the simple 
admission of the miracles. ‘Though recog- 
nizing the necessity of having a true historical 
foundation upon which to rest his hypothesis, 
he has utterly ignored, or at best has sadly 
perverted, the history in the case, and given 
us a mere theory which is in direct contradic- 
tion of the facts even as acknowledged by him- 
self. Indeed, in the very statement of his 
premises, he so glaringly contradicts himself 
as to make it appear that he had given the sub- 
ject but little serious consideration. First, he 
tells us that the disciples thought that in the 
death of Jesus all was lost. “They bewail and 
bury their friend, if not as one of the common 
herd, at least as a person whose loss was ir- 
reparable; they were sorrowful and cast down; 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 175 


the expectation they had indulged of seeing 
him realize the salvation of Israel is proved to 
have been vanity.” 

And yet a little further on he has these 
same disciples so sanguine in the hope of a 
resurrection, that “a man of penetration might 
have announced on Saturday that Jesus would 
arise; that is, the disciples were so hopeful of 
a resurrection that the hope would soon, to 
them, become father to the fact, and they were 
going to announce, and at all hazards main- 
tain as actual occurrence, that which had only 
been their intense desire. 

Again, Rénan has not only thus—by his 
perversion of the records—virtually acknowl- 
edged that he has no historical basis for his 
supposition, but he has widely erred as to the 
scientific facts involved. He contradicts the 
facts and principles of a correct psychology. 
He has failed to consider that while the mind 
which believes or hopes may sometimes, in 
imagination, see the object believed in or de- 
sired, the mind which despairs or disbelieves 
can have no such imaginary views of things. 
A strange philosophy this which makes the 


176 MIRACLES 


disciples, believing that Jesus was dead and 
all was over, so confident of seeing him again, 
that while his body is decaying in the ground 
they imagine that they do actually see him 
again, handle his hands and feet, dash into the 
sea and swim to him ashore, hold long com- 
munications with him, listen to his teachings 
concerning the kingdom of God,’® and keep 
up these experiences for forty days; or, as Re- 
nan would say, for months, or even a couple 
of years.*® 

What a travesty of the facts and workings 
of the human mind! Two or more persons,'* 
beholding in imagination the same thing at 
the same time, and hearing the same sounds, 
without one of them, by word or otherwise, 
making the least suggestion to the others; two 
men, walking,!® talking, passing the evening 
with a third man, both falling, at the same 
time, into the same reverie; both “coming to” 
at the same time, and ever after thinking that 
the third man had been a fourth man whom 
they had seen dead and buried three days be- 


1b Acts i, 3 16The Apostles, p. 312 
Matt. xxviii, 1. 8% Tuke xxiv, 13. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 177 


PURINE UNE E BoMe deett 
fore! Seven men,! all seeing at the same time 
an eighth man at a distance on the shore, all 
hearing him address them in the same words, 
when there was no eighth man there; eleven 
men,”° all at the same time seeing, conversing 
with, and handling, hand and foot, a twelfth 
man, when no such man was near; more than 
five hundred”! men at once seeing the same 
form and hearing the same voice, and all ever 
afterwards believing to have been a reality, 
and so declaring at the peril of their lives what 
had been only a figment of the imagination! 
One of these madmen,”? a poor fisherman of 
the lakes, in a single harangue, a harangue in 
which he had the insolence to charge upon his 
hearers as they stood before him, that they 
“had taken and with wicked hands” mur- 
dered this same Jesus, whose resurrection he 
was announcing, has such power in the telling 
of his wild hallucination that three thousand 
of the murderous throng accept the story with 
a readiness that can be explained only by the 
idea that all along they themselves have either 


PRD SAAC AE USED UA RENOIR Ue doeiad eR NN LS 
19John xxi, I. ~Tuke xxiv, 33, etc. 
217 Cor. xv, 6, etc. 22 Acts ii, 14, etc. 
12 


178 MIRACLES 


known the resurrection to be a fact, or have 
been under the same insane delusion that has 
maddened Peter. At any rate, the fisherman 
carries the day, and upon the conviction cre- 
ated by his words is founded, among the most 
determined enemies, a faith that overpowers 
opposition, grows with the lapse of centuries, 
and is to-day the most potent factor in life, 
morals, civilization, and religion known to 
man, 

It is not now necessary to say that Rénan’s 
hypothesis needs an additional hypothesis to 
explain itself, and is more difficult of explana- 
tion or belief than the proposition in explana- 
tion of which it was devised. 

Strauss perceived very clearly the frail sup- 
port on which he rests his theory of the mir- 
acles, and hence, after a formal statement of it, 
he candidly speaks of it as “the assumption 
which I have made, and which is not without 
contradiction.”** 

As for Rénan’s cock-and-bull story method 
of explaining the resurrection of Lazarus, it 
is too ridiculous to justify a comment. 


23 New Life of Jesus, I, 202. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 179 


Let us now consider the second question, 
Why this testimony was never contradicted. 

Let us note how the testimony came to be 
given to the world. The multitudes who tes- 
tified evidently did so out of their irrepressible 
admiration of Jesus and his mighty works. 
The evangelists reported the miracles as por- 
tions of the life of Jesus, appearing to have 
no other purpose than faithfully to record the 
deeds and sayings of their Master; Jesus him- 
self and his disciples made the miracles the 
grounds upon which it was claimed that the 
Messiahship should be admitted. The ene- 
mies of Jesus gave their testimony in the bit- 
terest hatred of Jesus and his cause, and in 
face of the fact that the miracles were the very 
means by which, more than all others, this 
cause was making advancement among the 
people. Now, it can not be believed that the 
testimony thus given should have been al- 
lowed to pass uncontradicted. Certainly there 
were reasons why this should not have been 
the case. The reports of the evangelists, if in 
the least regard liable to criticism or objec- 
tion, had been contradicted, if not from the 


180 MIRACLES 


disposition to check the spread of error, at 
least from the unwillingness of men silently to 
allow one of their number to be so highly ex- 
alted above themselves. Those religious lead- 
ers of the people, proud, arrogant, vain, in- 
tolerant, had not for a moment submitted to 
this, could there have been the least semblance 
of plausibility in their denial of the miracles. 
And yet how many occasions there were 
when such denial had been in place, was even 
challenged by both friends and enemies. 
When Jesus said, “Believe me for my works’ 
sake,” “The works that I do in my Father’s 
name, they bear witness of me,” “If I do not 
the works of my Father, believe me not,” he 
challenged contradiction from. whatsoever 
source it might arise. When Peter preached 
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God 
by miracles, and wonders, and signs, 

as ye yourselves also know,’** “this Jesus hath 
God raised up, whereof we ail are witnesses,’** 
he held himself and his fellow-disciples re- 
sponsible for the proof of what he said, and 
virtually dared high priests, scribes, and Phari- 


* Acts ii, 22. > Acts \ii, 32. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 181 


sees, all, to deny the declaration. How easy . 
and how opportune had been denial here! 
How easily the people might have clamored 
out to Jesus, We do not believe; the works of 
the Father we do not see, have never seen! 
How easily those priests, with the guard, 
might have rushed among the multitude, de- 
claring that all that Peter said about the resur- 
rection was a falsehood, they had the witnesses 
there to prove it such! 

Nowhere, throughout the entire land, from 
any sect or class came one word in denial of 
any of the miracles. These were sometimes 
ascribed to other sources than the power and 
will of Jesus—sometimes to God,”* sometimes 
to Beelzebub;?? but this, so far from being a 
denial, was an admission, clear and unequiv- 
ocal, that the miracles had been performed. 
Not only so; “many miracles” were openly 
confessed, even by those intolerant Pharisees; 
though every time a leperwas reported healed, 
or a blind man made to see, or the lame to 
walk, the foundations were more and more 
shaken of that proud sacerdotalism which, had 


John ix, 24. 27 Mark iii, 22. 


182 MIRACLES 


it had the power, would have rent the earth 
and heavens, rather than the cause of Jesus 
should prevail. 

It belongs to the unbeliever to show why 
the miracles were not denied; or if the denial 
was ever made, why it has not been trans- 
mitted to our times. Professor Fiske would 
have it that this argument, based upon the 
want of denial of the miracles of Jesus, is 
equally applicable to the miracles of Apollon- 
ius and Simon Magus. At no other time has 
the professor so closely imitated the “bonus 
Homerus”’ of the olden time. But certainly 
he is napping here. As for Simon Magus, our 
only knowledge of him is what we get from 
the “Acts,’’?8 where, among other like things, 
we learn that he had befooled the people by 
his sorceries, and had given out that “himself 


b 


was some great, one,” and all that we know 
of Apollonius comes from Philastratus, who 
wrote more than a hundred years subsequently 
to his hero’s death. ‘That the miracles of 
Apollonius and Simon Magus, therefore, were 
not denied makes no figure whatever in the 


* Acts viii, ix. 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 183 


(la al ISA Re IN IRC I sa eta 
argument. There has been no need of deny- 
ing that for which there is no authority. We 
ask again why the miracles of Jesus were 
never contradicted by those who knew, or 
might have known, the facts concerned. 
When the evangelists put on record their own 
positive testimony, that of the other disciples, 
that of the common people, that of Jesus him- 
self, and that of those violent enemies of Jesus, 
how did it occur that no one made or recorded 
a denial, with the proof, of such enormous 
falsehoods? 


The question remaining to be answered is, 


How came the world to have its high estimate —~_ : 


of Jesus, and how came to be established that 
remarkable kingdom which he preached? 
What the world’s estimate of Jesus is, we 
have already seen. Of no other name can 
such things be spoken as have been declared 
of the name of Jesus. Whatever men’s creeds 
or practices as regards the religion he came to 
teach, all admit that the world has had no 
equal to Jesus of Nazareth. The quotations 
made to this effect in a preceding portion of 
our argument have all been taken from men 


184 MIRACLES 
SE Sst CRON 


who disbelieve the miracles, and some of 
whom are open opponents of what we ordi- 
_narily call the true cause of Christ, yet the 
warmest advocates of this cause could not as- 
sert the exalted character of Jesus in terms 
more cogent or more beautiful. ‘Jesus, the 
name high over all,” expresses a sentiment felt 
and appreciated by all classes and grades of 
men. Greek, Roman, Protestants, Catholics, 
infidels, atheists, agnostics, many of the Jews, 
and Mohammedans even, all unite in this one 
utterance; and perhaps not an intelligent man 
in the civilized world can be found who would 
dissent from the proposition that “among the 
sons of men there has been born none greater 


EL ZAMS 9 


than Jesus,” “the incomparable man,” stand- 
ing in “the first rank of the men of sublime 
genius of whom our species can boast,” “in 
the very front rank of the grand family of the 
true sons of God.” 

And the kingdom which Jesus came to 
establish is now the ruling kingdom of the 
world. For sixty generations it has been ex- 
ercising sway more and more along the ages. 
Divine or human, the kingdom is among us; 


REVIEW OF ADVERSE ARGUMENT 185 


Divine or human, it has worked its way among 
the nations, and, more than all other forces 
combined, is lifting them up to higher planes 
of life and enterprise. Mr. Buckle*® and 
others may deny that the truths preached by 
Jesus have been the power that has made the 
nations of the modern world; but the fact 
stands before us, that these nations did not 
acquire their ascendency until these truths had 
wrought their way among them, and it is un- 
deniable that power, virtue, progress, individ- 
ual and national well-being are found to-day 
among the nations just in proportion as these 
truths have been the controlling forces in the 
hearts and lives of their citizens. Matthew 
Arnold’s “power” is making “for righteous- 
ness’ throughout the world; Mill’s “final vic- 
tory of good” is coming more and more cer- 
tainly into view, as we contemplate the future; 
and Professor Fiske’s “perfecting of human- 
ity’ can be doubted only by those who close 
their eyes to the facts of history and daily 
observation. Whatever the phrase by which 
this truth of the ultimate elevation of human 


*9 History of Civilization, I, 183. 


186 MIRACLES 


character may be expressed, the power by 
which it is to be effected, or by which at least 
it is being effected now, is the power of the 
kingdom which Jesus preached. 

Now, these facts—the world’s high esti- 
mate of Jesus and its acceptance of his king- 
dom—must be accounted for. 


CHAPTER VI 


Miracles the only Explanation of Christ’s 
Power and Kingdom in the World 


GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ARGU- 
MENT 


OT to the exalted character of Jesus and 

his sublime moral system are those facts 

to be ascribed which have just been consid- 
ered. Neither Jesus himself nor his disciples 
demanded the world’s submission to his teach- 
ings on any such grounds as these. The world 
in those days was not far enough advanced 
to be so impressed with the truth and beauty 
of mere moral forces. Neither is the world 
to-day, even in its most enlightened portions, 
capable of feeling and appreciating the power 
of such a life and character if associated with 
the repellent circumstances which beset that 
carpenter’s Son, as without the prestige of 
either rank or learning, without friends in 


power or wealth to aid him, he went about 
187 


188 MIRACLES 
AMA a AE Bd A SA tba Rabe a lle sce th ude EN LN OR yt 


teaching that if men would abandon father, 
mother, brother, sister, wife, houses, lands, 
and whatsoever else was dear, bear all manner 
of shame and opposition, and, if need be, even 
death itself, they might be his disciples, and 
follow him! Take the most highly-cultured 
Christian community on the globe, send forth 
into its midst a poor man of humble life teach- 
ing contrariwise to prevailing beliefs and in- 
terests, and we should soon see whether or not 
he would receive the honor which his con- 
temporaries bestowed on Jesus. In the 
Church of God itself the poor patronless man 
comes off well with the name of crank or her- 
etic if he undertakes to correct false ideas or 
establish new beliefs. Let such a one insist 
that his teachings shall be accepted, that all his 
innovations in belief and practice shall take 
the place of those which for generations have 
been deeply fixed in our hearts and con- 
sciences; and besides the scorn, contempt, and 
angry denunciations of the rabble, he would 
soon discover that ecclesiastical censures have 
not failed, nor anathemas been exhausted. 
What, then, would be the case if this poor 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 189 


man—telling us that our religion is little bet- 
ter than hypocrisy or a superstition, our bish- 
ops, elders, Doctors of Divinity, and theolog- 
ical professors only blind leaders of the blind 
—should claim for himself a wisdom and au- 
thority nowhere known to belong to man, a 
dignity and glory before which that of the 
greatest potentates of the world must dwindle 
into insignificance? Can we conceive an ele- 
vation of character either on the part of the 
teacher or the taught, that could make us, 
while one talked so wildly, accept his teach- 
ings? Not only so, but leave all, and follow 
him? Not only so, but, after the powers of 
both Church and State have put to death the 
rash enthusiast, worship him as God, and go 
forth proclaiming his honors to the world, 
bearing not only the reproach, but the severer 
penalties of our mad career? 

Allowing all that may be claimed in gen- 
eral for the power of a noble life in enforcing 
new and difficult truths, when we come to 
apply the argument to the case before us it 
most signally fails. Without the miracles it 
it impossible to see that Jesus displayed the 


190 MIRACLES 
UE LE EL ELS A OOO ON LS 


life or character to which his power in the 
world has been ascribed. It is by the miracles, 
“almost wholly, that either the world to-day or 
the men to whom Jesus preached came to 
know what kind of a man Jesus was. ‘That 
inexhaustible benevolence, tender compassion, 
and forgiving love which endeared him to his 
contemporaries, and with which his name has 
been a synonym for centuries, were seen 
chiefly, if not entirely, in the miracles which 
he wrought. It is recorded of him that he 
“went about doing good;” but how this was 
done without the miracles the records give no 
information. How, then, can we, without the 
miracles, ascribe to Jesus that beautiful char- 
acter with which he has so powerfully im- 
pressed the world? Where did Mill, Lecky, 
Rénan, Rousseau, James Freeman Clarke, and 
others get those glowing tributes they have 
rendered to the name of Jesus? Not from the 
redemptive work of Jesus, his sufferings 
upon the cross for man’s salvation—this work 
these men deny equally with the miracles; not 
from the enthusiasm of personal affection or 
zealous devotion to his cause, for this cause 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION I9I 


ial all lt lee ESS TR a 
most of them at least have totally ignored; 
not from the general tenor of the life of Jesus, 
for, robbed of the miracles, few biographies 
have been more barren of great and good 
achievements. Nor yet again from those re- 
markable teachings of Jesus could such ideas 
of his character have been derived. Men can 
not be judged by what they say or teach. Not 
all those who have been distinguished for pure 
and elevated teachings have been equally dis- 
tinguished for their pure and noble lives; and 
hence the world has long ago determined to 
judge of men not by what they teach, but by 
what they do, and how they live. Even ex- 
empting Jesus from this rule, and basing our 
judgment upon his teachings, we leave the 
problem still unsolved. Indeed, there are 
parts of these teachings which render the 
problem yet more difficult. Much that Jesus 
taught was in connection with the miracles, 
and one very striking thing he taught, taught 
more than once—taught publicly and most 
emphatically—was that he did work miracles, 
and that these were the proof that, as of a 
teacher sent from God, his other teachings 


192 MIRACLES 


were absolute, eternal truth. But the miracles 
he did not work! In plain statements of fact, 
which all could know and comprehend and 
test, we see that his words are false. Judge 
Jesus, then, by the excellence of his life and 
teachings? At the very outset we find him 
an unprincipled impostor and forger of false- 
hood, or else a weak, insane zealot, who either 
did not know what he was doing, or was un- 
conscious of what he said. 

Had Jesus limited his teachings to those 
beautiful truths by which he would purify hu- 
man life and conduct, we may conceive that 
these, elevated as they were above the moral 
conditions and appreciation of the people, 
might gradually through the ages have 
wrought their way to the world’s acceptance. 
But two important facts we must bear in 
mind: First, that no long ages intervened be- 
“tween the announcement and the admission 
of those truths proclaimed by Jesus; and, sec- 
~“ondly, Jesus announced many other truths— 
truths far more difficult to admit than the 
mere ethics of his kingdom. ‘The question, 
therefore, which here demands an answer is 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 193 


not how subsequent ages—men of the nine- 
teenth century, for instance—have embraced 
that kingdom; neither is the question how 
those Jews in Jesus’ day accepted the sublime 
moral system he proclaimed. It is not at all 
strange that the more cultivated portions of 
mankind have to-day, nominally at least, ad- 
_ mitted even all that Jesus taught. We have 
witnessed long centuries of the honor in which 
he has been held; we have seen his achieve- 
ments in the power and progress of the na- 
tions that have owned his sway; and, besides, 
here as in other things, we have been under 
the power of that strange principle in human 
nature which, after the lapse of time, magni- 
fies great men into heroes, and heroes into 
demigods. It is natural enough, therefore, 
that we to-day should revere the name of 
Jesus; but that men should have honored and 
worshiped as divine one who at the time was 
living and teaching among themselves—men 
who, daily perhaps—certainly very often— 
heard announcements that stirred to the 
depths their prejudices and aroused their 


hate—that these men should have honored 
13 


194 MIRACLES 
ee Sena Aaa aes ML aa, 


Jesus as they did, is, without the introduction 
of other influences than those ordinarily oper- 
ating on the human mind, inexplicable by any 
principle which either the historian or the 
logician can assert. 

It was enough, in all reason, that those 
men should have admitted portions of what 
Jesus taught, even as to the plainest moral 
duties. Men in those days no more liked to 
hear “Blessed are the pure in heart,” “Blessed 
are the poor in spirit,” “Blessed are the meek, 
the merciful, the peacemaker, those that 
mourn, those that bear wrong without retali- 


3? 


ation or revenge,” than many like to hear 
these things to-day. ‘Tio enforce these and 
other like ideas, however, was comparatively 
an easy thing. Jesus here had to overcome 
only the oppositions that arise from human 
nature. The antagonisms of a perverse relig- 
ious spirit were not encountered here. Big- 
otry, intolerance, ecclesiastical vanity, zeal for 
the letter and tradition had not yet been at- 
tacked by Jesus. But the attack soon comes, 
and never in the history of the world did a 
people endure what was borne by many of 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 195 


those Jews to whom Jesus preached. How he 
assaults their hallowed traditions, castigates 
their honored teachers and their cherished 
faiths and practices! Their washing of cups 
and pots, and their scruples as to eating with 
unwashed hands, were but substitutions of the 
commandments of men for the law of God; 
their punctilious observance of the Sabbath 
was a superstition; the authority of the elders 
he habitually set at naught, and even their 
great legislator, Moses, must in some of his 
enactments be set aside now that he, Jesus, 
had appeared; and as for the priests and elders 
of the people, publicans and harlots should 
enter the kingdom of heaven before them. 
The Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, and doc- 
tors of the law, authoritative expounders of the 
truth and righteousness, were but blind lead- 
ers of the blind, hypocrites, whited sepulchers, 
generations of vipers, children of the devil. 
He alone was the way, the truth, and the life, 
and no man could come to God but by him.t 
No man could take away his life from him; he 
alone had power to lay it down, and he had 


1John xiv, 6. 


196 MIRACLES 
eens vnnoeensnsneetnenesienees 


power to take it again.2, He was not of this 
world, like the men to whom he discoursed2 
He had dwelt with God in glory before the 
foundation of the world,‘ and after his death 
and burial he was going to rise from the dead,’ 
and ascend to the throne of the eternal glory.’ 
Fle was a greater than Jonah, greater than 
Solomon,” greater than the Temple,’ Lord of 
the Sabbath day,® had existed before Abra- 
ham,*® was one and equal with God," and 
they must honor him, as they had honored 
their Father, God.12_ Not only so; Jesus 
would make good these amazing claims by 
doing deeds which none but God could do. 
He would heal the leper with a word; he 
would make the blind to see, the lame to walk, 
the dumb to speak, and even the dead to rise. 
These things he had done, and was doing 
daily, before their eyes,!8 and if they beheld 
not those works of God, they were not to ad- 


mit those lofty claims.!4 
AEE Ua We Ebel annie Mesh nats eek ae 


2John x, 18, 7 Matt. xii, 4, etc. 2John v, 23. 
8John viii, 23. 8 Matt. xii, 6. 3 Matt. xi, 4. 
4John xvii, 5. 9Mark ii, 28. 4John x, 37 
5 Matt. xx, 19. 10John viii, 58. 


®John xvi, Io. John x, 30. 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 197 


But, strangest thing of all, everything that 
is here said by Jesus is admitted. That sub- 
lime code of ethics, that pure spiritual wor- 
ship, those extraordinary pretensions to Di- 
vine power and wisdom, those extravagant 
demands of the undivided homage and obedi- 
ence of mankind, together with his assertions 
of a pre-existent state and supernatural char- 
acter, and his claims to have given proof of 
all this by miracles, and even, in due time, his 
resurrection from the dead, are admitted, all, 
without dissent or doubt, by many of those 
who had every opportunity to test these claims 
by actual observation. 

And this admission was not the zeal and 
enthusiasm of a moment, nor was it limited to 
those who had first associated themselves with 
the cause of Jesus. But a few weeks after the 
death of Jesus the band of disciples is aug- 
mented by three thousand the first time those - 
claims are laid before the people, and shortly 
afterwards the number is swollen by thou- 
sands more, and still the numbers are en- 
larged. Persecution has little effect upon the 
rising cause. Stephen is stoned; John and 


198 MIRACLES 

STF a ena eda NU anatacer Son dh UMM PE 
Peter are put in prison; the disciples are scat- 
tered from their homes; high priests and Phar- 
isees essay all means to suppress what before 
long became known as the “prevailing doc- 


5) 


trine;” and, in far less time than Rome had 
taken to extend her borders a score of miles 
from the Tiber, are found in almost every cap- 
ital of the ancient world those who testify their 
belief in Jesus, and are ready to seal their 
testimony with their blood. 

Now, how can we explain all this? That 
those strange teachings of Jesus, those wild 
assertions were admitted without proof of the 
exalted nature which he professed, is not for 
one moment to be believed; and that Jesus 
should have promised and professed the proof, 
should have professed to do the miracles 
which he did not do, should have promised 
even a resurrection from the dead, and then 
died, was buried, and decayed in the earth like 
any other man; and yet the disciples not only 
lost none of their original enthusiasm, but 
went forth preaching Jesus, his wonderful 
teachings, his miracles, and resurrection, with 
a power which allied to itself at the very out- 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 199 


en 


set thousands of those who, with wicked 
hands, had slain their Master, and that these 
in turn should set to proclaiming the new faith 
by appeal to miracles which had not been 
wrought, and to the resurrection which had 
not taken place,—to believe that these dis- 
ciples should have done all this, is an insult 
to reason. 

It will not do to say that the disciples be- 
lieved the miracles, and that this belief, though 
a delusion, was sufficient to explain their 
course. Such a belief, if only a delusion, is as 
difficult to account for as the fact to be ex- 
plained. That a few men have, in isolated 
cases, mistaken for actual facts things which 
had existed only in their imaginations, espe- 
cially when for such things their minds had 
been prepared by previous habits of thought 
and training, is a fact well known and ad- 
~ mitted; but we should search history in vain 
for large numbers of men in different com- 
munities, on different occasions, being so de- 
luded or bewitched as to have visions of things 
which had no reality; see deeds daily for a 
number of years performed before their eyes, 


200 MIRACLES 

a a a ESL UC GRU RIS Oona a 
deeds offered in proof of claims and teachings 
that antagonized the rites, creeds, and usages 
which had controlled their minds and the 
minds of their fathers for long generations, 
and many of them persisting in seeing such 
things with the terrors of persecution, exile, 
and death confronting them at every step,— 
such a delusion as this is without parallel in 
history, is contrary to all we know of human 
nature, and is more difficult to believe than 
the miracles themselves, unless we take the 
position that those men had become insane. 
We need not speak of delusions here; of an- 
cient prophecies or zeal for Jesus making 
those men believe, as actually seen by the eye, 
what had been only the creations of their 
minds; men who repeatedly see and believe 
such things have lost their reason, and we 
need not emphasize the matter by descanting 
on myths, visions, hallucinations, and other 
like things. If these men were not insane, 
there is no explanation of their conduct. That 
men in full possession of their reason should 
have admitted those teachings of Jesus— 
teachings so repellent both to reason and to 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 201 


ree Onan ean ee 
prejudice—without evidence given of a mis- 
sion from the Father, or that this evidence 
should have been professed by Jesus, but 
never given to the world, and yet those mar- 
velous pretensions were none the less admitted 
and maintained—maintained at the greatest 
sacrifice, and upon the basis of the proof that 
was not given,—that men of sound minds 
should have acted thus, is equivalent to saying 
that sane men are insane, or insane men are 
sane, or that we have no means of distinguish- 
ing objective facts from mere mental states. 

Should the objector now say that either 
horn of this dilemma were preferable to ad- 
mission of things so contrary to nature and 
experience as were the miracles, it is replied 
(1) that the miracles could not have been 
more contrary to nature and experience than 
such a belief or delusion had been; (2) that 
contrariety to nature and experience are far | 
different things from inconsistency with the 
power and will of the Author of nature; and 
(3) that the phrase nature and expervence 
means nothing more nor less than our expert- 
ence of nature, and no man has had enough of 


202 MIRACLES 


this to say that miracles are contrary to nature 
or her laws. Each man, it must be remem- 
bered, has direct knowledge of his own experi- 
ence only, and he can know the experience of 
the rest of the world, therefore, only by the 
testimony of every other man in the world, 
and this testimony no man has had. And, 
then, if testimony to experience against the 
miracles is to be attended to, it is but fair that 
we should equally attend to the experience 
which has been asserted in favor of the mir- 
acles. In other words, the new argument of 
those who deny the miracles reduces the ques- 
tion to one of testimony alone, and hence we 
come back to the original proposition, that 
the miracles of Jesus are to be discussed, like 
all other alleged facts in history, not in the 
light of the agencies by which they may have 
» been produced, or their relation to law and 
nature, but wholly in the light of the testi- 
mony that has been produced. 

Let us now, in conclusion, notice some of 
the general characteristics of the argument 
furnished by this testimony. } 

The argument has been conducted with 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 203 


reference to the facts alone. It has called for 
assistance from no hypotheses, theory, or as- 
sumption, of any kind. Nothing has been 
assumed as to the nature of the miracles, nor 
as to the agencies by which they were accom- 
plished; nothing as to the Divine origin and 
authority of the sacred writings; nothing as 
to the character of the witnesses that may not 
be assumed of men in general; and we have 
requested assent to no premise or conclusion 
that would not be readily granted in the in- 
vestigation of any other subject. 

The argument has proceeded upon the 
principle which runs through all reasonings 
where we would have the surest basis of belief. 
When we would have belief to guide us with 
unerring certainty, we depend upon the testi- 
_mony of the eye, not of the intellect or judg- 
ment. In founding our argument, therefore, 
: upon what the witnesses saw, instead of what 
either they or we ourselves have believed from 
a course of reasoning, we have for the mir- 
acles of Jesus the very same evidence which 
controls us in the most positive convictions 
of our lives—the evidence by which we know 


204 MIRACLES 
etn nc a aS SULT SRE el OA eT 
the daily objects and events about us, by which 


we conduct our intercourse with man and na- 
ture, by which we administer our laws, make 
our researches in physical science, and, in gen- 
eral, fit ourselves into the varied conditions of 
life and being in the world about us. In a 
word, our belief in those extraordinary deeds 
of Jesus rests upon evidend¢e the most satis- 
factory and convincing known to man, and 
evidence which has been transmitted to us 
with a certainty that leaves no doubt as to its 
having been familiar to the thousands who 
had every opportunity of knowing whether it 
was true or false. 

The testimony presenting the evidence is 
both ample and explicit; given without re- 
straint or reservation, without concealment or 
equivocation, without self-contradiction or 
mutual contradiction of the witnesses, or con- 
tradiction from others, either friends or ene- 
mies of the cause in question; the testimony 
of four different contemporary writers, two 
of whom are admitted to have been eye-wit- 
nesses to at least the general facts of Jesus’ 
life, the other two to have gotten their ac- 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 205 


counts from those who knew the facts re- 
corded by them; the testimony of multitudes 
who followed Jesus, including the disciples 
who, if they knew anything at all of Jesus, 
certainly knew whether the miracles were per- 
formed; numbers of scribes, Pharisees, and 
other enemies, who were doing all they could 
to crush the cause of Jesus; and, above all, the 
testimony of Jesus himself, bearing a character 
for wisdom and integrity accorded to no other 


man since the world began. The world may ~~ ae 


be challenged to produce another event in 
times equally remote, for which we have such 
evidence. Not one battle, siege, tyrannicide, 
usurpation, or other fact in all ancient history 
is so well proven as either the other miracles 
or the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. 
We go further, and without the least dispo- 
sition to disparage other portions of the 
Sacred Word, venture to assert that not in all 
the history of the chosen people, not in the 
lives of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles, not 
even in the life of Jesus himself, have we one 
other event so well attested, even according 
to the most exact “historical or literary” 


206 MIRACLES 


AROUSAL Dt EEE WORM ENR oA Se Coa | 
methods, as are the signs, wonders, mighty 
works, and resurrection from the dead of 
Jesus. 

Evidence such as this can not be refuted. 
It may be resisted; false methods of investiga- 
tion, the assumption of unauthorized views of 
law and nature, may deprive the evidence of 
its power as addressed to certain minds ; but 
of the evidence itself there can be no refuta- 
tion. There is nota fact in history, either of 
f ancient or modern times, not a scientific 
theory, not a case in court, that would not be 
admitted as fully proven by evidence far less 
satisfactory. If the miracles of Jesus are not 
proven by it, human wisdom is incapable of 
applying a mode of proof that could be more 
effectual or convincing. A larger number of 
witnesses could not be demanded; circum- 
stances better adapted to test the honesty of 
the witnesses could not be secured had we the 
matter in our own hands to-day; and that such 
a number of witnesses could have been de- 
luded, could have persisted in their error, and 
succeeded in deluding multitudes of others 
into the same wild hallucination with them- 


THE ONLY EXPLANATION 207 


selves, can be admitted only by those wholly 
ignorant of the laws that govern human na- 
ture, or resolutely determined, at every sacri- 
fice of common sense and logic, to form their 
convictions upon other grounds than evi- 
dence. 

The rejection of the miracles involves a 
number of absurdities from which the mind 
recoils. 

Reject the miracles on the ground of want 
or insufficiency of the evidence, and, to be 
consistent, we should equally reject the 
greater part of modern, and all of ancient, his- 
tory; reject them because of either dishonesty 
or delusion charged upon the witnesses, and 
then no testimony can be admitted as that of 
sane or honest men; reject them because of 
liability to error in the senses, and we have no 
absolute assurance as to things occurring 
within our own observation and experience. 
All history may thus be shown to be a fable, 
all life a delusion or a dream. 


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